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“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.” The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.

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Nigerian police say they have rescued six pregnant girls from child traffickers who were planning to sell their babies. Two men and a woman have been arrested in the case, which is the second so-called baby factory to be uncovered in a week. Last week, at least 23 girls and four babies were found in Umuaka, in eastern Nigeria’s Imo State.

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This little known story has met a just conclusion, as Sophia Stewart, African American author of The Matrix will finally receive her just due from the copyright infringement of her original work!!! A six-year dispute has ended involving Sophia Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart’s allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow presiding. Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the past five years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood , as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.

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Wireless operators have access to an unprecedented volume of information about users’ real-world activities, but for years these massive data troves were put to little use other than for internal planning and marketing. This data is under lock and key no more. Under pressure to seek new revenue streams (see “AT&T Looks to Outside Developers for Innovation”), a growing number of mobile carriers are now carefully mining, packaging, and repurposing their subscriber data to create powerful statistics about how people are moving about in the real world.

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A British judge on Thursday sentenced a businessman who sold fake bomb detectors to 10 years in jail, saying the millionaire had shown a cavalier disregard for potentially fatal consequences. James McCormick made an estimated 50 million pounds ($77.8 million) from the sales of his non-working detectors – which were based on a novelty golf ball finder – to countries including Iraq, Belgium, Niger and Saudi Arabia. McCormick, 57, was convicted of three counts of fraud last month and sentenced Thursday at the Old Bailey court in London, where Judge Richard Hone called his profits from a “callous confidence trick” obscene and outrageous.

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United Nations Twitter Account Follows Porn Star

The official United Nations Twitter account has 1,462,609 followers (or it did at the time this article was published) and only follows 537 accounts – a pretty exclusive club to say the least. For the most part, the 537 accounts @UN follows include world governments, dozens of UN special missions and international heads of states. Buried within that list, however, ConstitutionSchool.com was shocked to discover one account which seemed oddly out of place: “Penelope Black Diamond,” a German porn star whose Twitter username is @BigBustyStar.

‘So, rather surprisingly, we can say that life on earth 1,900 million years ago would have smelled a lot like rotten eggs.’

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It’s no secret that we’re monitored continuously on the Internet. Some of the company names you know, such as Google and Facebook. Others hide in the background as you move about the Internet. There are browser plugins that show you who is tracking you. One Atlantic editor found 105 companies tracking him during one 36-hour period. Add data from your cell phone (who you talk to, your location), your credit cards (what you buy, from whom you buy it), and the dozens of other times you interact with a computer daily, we live in a surveillance state beyond the dreams of Orwell. It’s all corporate data, compiled and correlated, bought and sold. And increasingly, the government is doing the buying. Some of this is collected using National Security Letters (NSLs). These give the government the ability to demand an enormous amount of personal data about people for very speculative reasons, with neither probable cause nor judicial oversight. Data on these secretive orders is obviously scant,

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Dr Nitzan said: ‘All of the patients developed psychotic symptoms related to the situation, including delusions regarding the person behind the screen and their connection through the computer. ‘Two patients began to feel vulnerable as a result of sharing private information, and one even experienced tactile hallucinations, believing that the person beyond the screen was physically touching her. ‘Some of the problematic features of the internet relate to issues of geographical and spatial distortion, the absence of non-verbal cues, and the tendency to idealise the person with whom someone is communicating, becoming intimate without ever meeting face-to-face.’ He added that mental health professionals should not overlook the internet’s influence when speaking to patients. ‘When you ask somebody about their social life, it’s very sensible to ask about Facebook and social networking habits, as well as internet use.

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The State Department of the United States recently released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012, posing as “the world judge of human rights” again. As in previous years, the reports are full of carping and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, the U.S. turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and never said a word about it. Facts show that there are serious human rights problems in the U.S. which incur extensive criticism in the world. The Human Rights Record of the U.S. in 2012 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the U.S. to people across the world by simply laying down some facts.

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A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name — and no antidote. The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised “better living through chemistry,” but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment.

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In 1907, six different villages were built in the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale, representing all the corners of the French colonial empire at the time– Madagascar, Indochine, Sudan, Congo, Tunisia and Morocco. The villages and their pavillions were built to recreate the life and culture as it was in their original habitats. This included mimicking the architecture, importing the agriculture and appallingly, inhabiting the replica houses with people, brought to Paris from the faraway territories.

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It’s been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually. The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner. By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

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And in the response to Supreme, he argued that McSweeney had been putting out Supreme Bitch shirts since 2004, when she was 22. Nine years later, Jebbia and Supreme have attempted to sue her for millions of dollars, arguing copyright infringement against the brand. A brand that, by the way, has definitely incorporated other people and other companies’ design elements itself. One of those people? American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger, whose work explicitly inspired not just Supreme’s ubiquitous red-and-white logo (see above), but so many other brands like it, and legions of other fairly famous artists as well. But in the past, Kruger—who now teaches at UCLA—has been pretty quiet on the connections, deferring questions about the commercial entrepreneurs who’ve culled from and profited off of the template she inarguably set. But we thought we’d give it a shot, and Complex reached out to Kruger anyway, asking her what she made of the lawsuit, as well as both McSweeney and Jebbia’s p

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When it comes to sex, Germans are not known for being squeamish. Yet a sex-education book that has been circulating in Berlin elementary schools has some parents up in arms. The book, “Where Do You Come From?” (“Wo kommst du her?”), which is recommended for ages 5 and up, shows a couple, Lisa and Lars, in various stages of arousal. In one illustration, Lisa puts a condom on Lars’ erect penis. Another shows them having intercourse. The text also veers toward the explicit. “When it’s so good that it can’t get any better, Lisa and Lars have an orgasm,” it reads. And, finally: “The vagina and penis feel nice and tingly and warm.”

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“We wanted to give people a sense of not only where to put their sexual organs, but where to put their arms and legs,” Ribner says. “If you have never seen a movie, never read a book, how are you supposed to know what you do?”

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By adding all those sub-categories up, imperfect as they may be, it’s clear that the rate of reported overdoses the U.S. more than doubled between 1999 and 2010. About half of those additional deaths are in the pharmaceuticals category, which the CDC has written about before. Nearly three-quarters of the pharmaceuticals deaths are opioid analgesics—prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin. And while cocaine, heroin and alcohol are all responsible for enough deaths to warrant their own stripes on the chart, many popular illegal drugs—including marijuana and LSD—are such a tiny blip as to be invisible.

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“The baby was naked. They strapped tape around her mouth to keep her from screaming. Then they placed her on a board. After calling on the spirits they threw her on the bonfire alive,” said Miguel Ampuero, of the Police investigative Unit, Chile’s equivalent of the FBI. Authorities said the 12-member sect was formed in 2005 and was led by Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, 36, who remains at large. “Everyone in this sect was a professional,” Ampuero said. “We have someone who was a veterinarian and who worked as a flight attendant, we have a filmmaker, a draftsman. Everyone has a university degree. ” Police said Castillo Gaete, the ringleader, was last seen traveling to Peru to buy ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew plant that he used to control the members of the rite.

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SO, the bottom line is this: If you are in a place where you hear steady, and sustained, and nearby (lets call that, for some technical reasons, anything less than 800 meters) gunfire, do these things: Go to your basement. You are cool there. If you don’t have a basement, go to the other side of the house from the firing, and leave, heading away from the firing. Do not stop for a mile. If you do not think that you can leave, get on the ground floor, as far from the firing as possible, and place something solid between you and the firing. Solid is something like a bathtub, a car (engine block), a couple of concrete walls (single layer brick…nope). If you are high up (say 4rd story or higher) just get away from the side of the building where the firing is taking place. You will, mostly, be protected by the thick concrete of the structure. 8. But for cripes sake, do not step out on to your front porch and start recording a video on your iPhone, unless you actually have a death-wish

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“Terrorists want media attention, so we give it to them. Unsafe industries don’t want media attention–so we give that to them.” And that’s exactly what’s going on today, in the coverage of the two disasters last week.

5000 people at 4-20 for UCSC. This guy had a booth set up to unveil this guy, shouldn’t have drawn so much attention man!

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“the ringleader of it all, according to the indictment, is Tavon White, a four-year inmate charged with attempted murder. He reportedly made $16,000 in one month off the smuggled contraband. Four corrections officers–Jennifer Owens, Katera Stevenson, Chania Brooks and Tiffany Linder, who are also facing charges — allegedly became impregnated by White since he’s been in jail. Charging documents reveal Owens had ‘Tavon’ tattooed on her neck and Stevenson had ‘Tavon’ tattooed on her wrist.”

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All Planet Infowars Users that are participating in the Dating Freedom Lovers Mission.

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In its report, Elaph said several religious cops deployed through the festival rushed into the UAE pavilion on Sunday and escorted three Emirati delegates out. “A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the news service said, adding that the festival’s management took urgent measures to deport the three to Abu Dhabi.

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Hundreds of poor people waiting outside of a closed grocery store for the possibility of getting the remaining food is not the picture of the “American Dream.” Yet on March 23, outside the Laney Walker Supermarket in Augusta, Ga., that is exactly what happened. Residents filled the parking lot with bags and baskets hoping to get some of the baby food, canned goods, noodles and other non-perishables. But a local church never came to pick up the food, as the store owner prior to the eviction said they had arranged. By the time the people showed up for the food, what was left inside the premises—as with any eviction—came into the ownership of the property holder, SunTrust Bank. The bank ordered the food to be loaded into dumpsters and hauled to a landfill instead of distributed. The people that gathered had to be restrained by police as they saw perfectly good food destroyed. Local Sheriff Richard Roundtree told the news “a potential for a riot was extremely high.”

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10 Biggest Unsolved U.S. Terrorism Cases

1 Wall Street Bombing (September 16,1920) – New York, New York 38 dead, 143 wounded The detonation of a horse-drawn wagon loaded with 45kg of dynamite and more than 200kg of scrap iron in front of the J.P. Morgan offices in New York remains the deadliest unsolved terrorist incident in U.S. history. Federal agents investigated, and dismissed, the possibility of involvement by Soviet saboteurs, the Communist Party USA and the Industrial Workers of the World. Historians believe the bombing may have been engineered by Italian anarchists.

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It’s been known for decades that animals such as chimpanzees seek out medicinal herbs to treat their diseases. But in recent years, the list of animal pharmacists has grown much longer, and it now appears that the practice of animal self-medication is a lot more widespread than previously thought, according to a University of Michigan ecologist and his colleagues.

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“Originally, the dung-covered beans were collected in coffee plantations but more recently, as more people wanted to drink coffee made from beans that had passed through the intestines of this small carnivore, entrepreneurs have begun sticking civets in cages, feeding them coffee beans and recollecting them from the dung for wholesale,” the paper’s author, Chris Shepherd the deputy regional director with anti-wildlife crime NGO TRAFFIC, told mongabay.com. “Reportedly, as demand rose, other civet species were captured and added to these captive civet coffee makers.”

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Police almost never talk about or claim credit for making the arrests. Police make so many because they are easy arrests and because significant constituencies within police departments benefit from the arrests. Police work can be dangerous. Ordinary patrol and narcotics police like the marijuana arrests because they are relatively safe and easy. If an officer stops and searches 10 or 15 young people, one or two of them will likely have a bit of marijuana. All police have arrest quotas and often they can earn much-desired overtime pay by making a marijuana arrest toward the end of a shift. In New York City, arresting people for petty offenses for overtime pay is called “collars for dollars.” Every cop in the city knows that expression. From the officers’ point of view, people possessing marijuana are highly desirable arrestees. As one veteran lieutenant said, people whose only crime is marijuana possession are “clean,” meaning physically clean. Unlike junkies or winos

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In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind. Today, we have reached the same point in relation to information that we faced 20 years ago in regard to food. We are beginning to recognise how toxic news can be.

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“Super Mario groped the woman,” says Times Square Alliance president Tim Tompkins. “Elmo was ranting anti-Semitic things. Spider-Man punched a woman in the face. Now a kid was attacked by Cookie Monster. And those are just ones where there’s been an arrest! We’ve anecdotally heard there’s a lot more that’s been happening. One of my staff members said an Elmo patted her backside when she was walking through Times Square on a crowded day.” Tompkins also pointed us to a photo of a man dressed as Toy Story’s Woody urinating in a doorway

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BOOTY-OBSESSED Barbie Edwards has spent a fortune on food to get such a huge backside — but now her big butt is making big bucks. The 42-year-old mum claims she has the world’s largest bottom, and says she has used her unique asset to make a whopping £18,000 in the past six months just by BALANCING things on her behind. The colossal rear measures creating a “butt shelf” upon which Barbie can balance trays of food and drink — to the delight of her paying fans. The bouncy blonde is delighted with her shape and is now hoping to persuade Guinness World Records to include a new category for world’s biggest shelf behind. She said: “I used to hate my big hips and bum, but since I’ve been modelling it’s changed the way I feel about myself. My bum shelf has a career all of its own and I wouldn’t change it.”

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So the very bill that Obama last year claimed was “a good first step” and suggested that “we should do even more in the months ahead”, has now been totally revised and stripped of the most important aspects which promote transparency in the new bill that he has just signed yesterday. Instead of doing more to increase transparency, Congress and President Obama have rolled back the very provisions of the bill which helped promote an open government, in a decidedly non-transparent manner (unanimous voice consent, closed-signing by the president).

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The Hocking County Sheriff’s office is trying to get to the bottom of who is responsible for drugging Laurelville Police Chief Mike Berkemeier. Berkemeier says the problem began Easter Sunday when he ate some cake sitting on his kitchen counter. ”I got up in the morning and ate it — the entire thing,” he said. Shortly after eating that cake, Berkemeier says he began to feel sick like never before. ”I thought I was dying,” he said. Berkemeier says all he could think to do was make the short drive from his home to the Laurelville police station for help. ”I don’t remember much of the drive here, even though it’s just a few blocks and was met by a couple of the medics from the fire department,” he said. Berkemeier tells 10TV medics transported him to Berger Hospital in Circleville where doctors performed tests to see what was wrong with him. ”I kept trying to explain to them this wasn’t getting any better. It just got worse,” he said. “I felt like I was out of my mind.”

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Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone

It’s amazing to discover that aviation – an industry where safety is of vital importance and every physical element has one or even two fail-safe mechanisms – is failing to secure the onboard computer, the heart and brain of the plane.

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There is a national crisis of federal employees engaged in the child porn industry and a related epidemic at the state level. I’ve documented two states, Vermont and Maine, that appear to be running state protected child trafficking rings with evidence of cops, judges, lawyers, clergy and government employees covering for each other. This kind of racketeering creates powerful, and extremely profitable, pedophile rings. Money drives the crime. It is estimated that a criminal willing to molest a child in front of a live webcam can earn $1,000 a night. In Kittery Maine, at the “Danish Health Club,” one bust yielded $6.1 million in “door fees” over a five year period with “prostitutes” earning $12 million. Pimps’ earnings were not reported. The “door man” was a retired police officer whose wife worked in back. This bust happened because of one hard-working IRS agent, Rod Giguere.

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So if THC levels are generally high across the board and the other cannabinoids are present only at trace levels, what makes one strain different from another? And why does each marijuana strain impart a distinct psychoactive effect? There must be something else in the plant that influences the quality of the cannabis high. David Watson, the master crafter of the foundational hybrid Skunk #1, was among the first to emphasize the importance of aromatic terpenes for their modifying impact on THC. Terpenes, or terpenoids, are the compounds in cannabis that give the plant its unique smell. THC and the other cannabinoids have no odor, so marijuana’s compelling fragrance depends on which terpenes predominate. It’s the combination of terpenoids and THC that endows each strain with a specific psychoactive flavor.

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Everyone knows the IRS is our nation’s tax collector, but it is also a law enforcement organization tasked with investigating criminal violations of the tax laws. New documents released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the IRS Criminal Tax Division has long taken the position that the IRS can read your emails without a warrant—a practice that one appeals court has said violates the Fourth Amendment (and we think most Americans would agree).

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The discovery of a hidden camera may help solve a series of break-ins at upscale homes in several North Texas cities. “This one has already been camouflaged,” said detective Ben Singleton, holding what looks like a piece of bark that would go unnoticed in most yards. It’s actually a video camera not much bigger than a matchbox, and it’s activated by a motion detector. Such cameras turned up in March planted outside several upscale homes in Dalworthington Gardens. “I’ve never seen anything like this. And most detectives in this area haven’t,” Singleton said. Earlier this month, John Anton discovered the first one near his driveway. “I had no idea what it was,” Anton said. “Very strange.” He took the device to Dalworthington Gardens police. “We tore one of these apart to figure out what it was all about,” Singleton said. The detective said it turned out to be surveillance for a long-running, sophisticated burglary scheme. But at first, police feared it might even be a kidnapping plot to

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Elites tend to believe in a venal, selfish, and essentially monstrous version of human nature, which I sometimes think is their own human nature. I mean, people don’t become incredibly wealthy and powerful by being angelic, necessarily. They believe that only their power keeps the rest of us in line and that when it somehow shrinks away, our seething violence will rise to the surface—that was very clear in Katrina. Timothy Garton Ash and Maureen Dowd and all these other people immediately jumped on the bandwagon and started writing commentaries based on the assumption that the rumors of mass violence during Katrina were true. A lot of people have never understood that the rumors were dispelled and that those things didn’t actually happen; it’s tragic.

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The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins and fresh fruit, and backslap old acquaintances as they file into a sprawling Marriott hotel conference hall. They will hear a keynote address by Robert DuPont, who served as drug policy director under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nothing odd about any of this until you consider that the main subject of the conference is urine.

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Once banned from the world of mainstream comic books by the infamous Comics Code Authority, LGBT characters now have a stronger presence in the world of superhero comics than ever before, with gay and lesbian heroes like Batwoman, Northstar and Green Lantern Alan Scott openly declaring who they are — and even getting married. Today, DC Comics told Wired that it will continue to expand the LGBT diversity of its superhero universe by introducing the first openly transgender character in a mainstream superhero comic.

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A remarkable thing happened in 2008: drug overdose surpassed auto fatalities as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. Public health officials declared an epidemic, and communities united to battle this new enemy that had left a staggering body count in its wake. The people had a weapon, naloxone, an antidote that reverses opiate overdose, and programs began popping up across the country to provide training and free naloxone to people at risk for overdose. But then Big Pharma stepped in. The same year that naloxone became so critical to saving lives, one pharmaceutical company secured a monopoly on its production and jacked up the prices by 1,100%.

Bet you didn’t think you needed semen pills.

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Riot Toys

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A blackout disabled cooling at four fuel pools last month, an event the company traced to a rat that might have gnawed on power cables and caused a short circuit. Engineers found its scorched body in a damaged switchboard. Tepco has since installed mousetraps at the site and promised to plug holes through which rats and other rodents might enter buildings and gnaw on important equipment. It has also promised to speed up work to install backup power cables to the fuel pools. But Friday afternoon, four workers using wire meshing to seal a space around electric cables caused a ground fault, or the accidental flow of current to the ground. No one was injured, but the ground fault shut off electricity to the cooling system at the No. 3 reactor fuel pool. “We were installing wire nets to keep the rats out. But the end of one of the wires may have momentarily come into contact with a live terminal,” said Masayuki Ono, general manager at Tepco’s Nuclear Power and Plant Siting Division. “…

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People seem to have a love-hate relationship with dogs dressed up like humans, but that hasn’t stopped the Internet from churning out more ridiculous memes. The latest installment: Dogs wearing pantyhose (OK, we’re classing it up a bit, Dis Magazine called it “bitches wearing pantyhose”) is a trend picking up in China, according to Sharp Daily, a Hong Kong news site.

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At the height of his use, the man – known as “Mr A” – was taking 25 tablets a day, Psychosomatics journal revealed. The 37-year-old still had trouble with short-term memory problems seven years after he stopped taking the drug. Doctors at St George’s Hospital, London said Mr A’s case was extreme, but showed ecstasy’s long-term effects. It is possible to become psychologically dependent on the feelings associated with ecstasy but heavy daily use is extremely rare and it is not thought that people can become physically dependent Martin Barnes, DrugScope The doctors said it was the largest reported ecstasy lifetime consumption by one person, the previous being around 2,000 tablets. Writing in Psychosomatics, they say Mr A reported he had used ecstasy between the ages of 21 and 30. For two years, he took five tablets every weekend, rising to an average of 3.5 tablets per day for the next three years, then soaring to 25 tablets a day over the next four years.

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Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States isabsolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of “tunnel people” living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night. The federal government tells us that the recession “is over” and that “things are getting better”, and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight. So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits?

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Amsterdam is to create “Scum villages” where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with “minimal services” under constant police supervision.

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America won’t be repeating that historic one small step anytime soon — not according to NASA chief Charlie Bolden, anyway. “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime,” Bolden told a joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board in Washington last week

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As many of you may know, and may have heard in the news recently, many of my sermons have deviated from traditional Christian doctrine. I have been accused of altering the ‘message’ to fit my own doctrine and dogma. Others have accused me of preaching ‘feel good Christianity’. I have also been accused of profiting greatly from my ministry, with my books and television deals. Many of their criticisms are legitimate. What they don’t know is that deep down in my heart, for a number of years now, I have been questioning the faith, Christianity and whether Jesus Christ is really my, or anyone’s, ‘savior’. I believe now that the Bible is a fallible, flawed, highly inconsistent history book that has been altered hundreds of times. There is zero evidence the Bible is the holy word of God. In fact, there is zero evidence “God” even exists. No God worth believing in is going to send you to Hell for not believing in him. Not even the worst sinner and scum of the Earth deserves eternal torment

Within the Primal/paleo community and elsewhere, it’s often stated offhandedly that wheat is addictive. And absolutely, wheat for many people feels like something they could never give up. I hear it all the time: “I couldn’t live without bread.” “What would I do without cereal, dinner rolls, toast, {insert your favorite grain-based food item here}.” And wheat is often the main culprit in the sugar/insulin rollercoaster that drives sugar-burners’ need to eat (more wheat) every few waking hours. But is wheat addictive in a different sense – as an opiate like heroin and other drugs? Today I take a look at the research and attempt to separate fact from fiction. What do we really know about wheat as an opiate?

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A pair of plainclothes officers arrived at New Edition Cleaners at 4929 Broadway at 11 a.m. Tuesday, armed with buckets of black paint, rollerbrushes and drop cloths, and began painting over local graffiti artist Alan Ket’s five-day-old mural titled “Murderers.” The two identified themselves as police to a reporter. The mural, which included the word “murderers” painted above several tombstones and coffins with epitaph names that included the NYPD, the Environmental Protection Agency and global corporations including Halliburton and Monsanto, was painted on the wall of the business with the permission of its owners. Officers visited the store on Monday, telling owners that the painting needed to come down and calling the message a “bad idea.” “I can’t confront them, because I don’t want problems,” New Edition Cleaners owner Marina Curet, who has owned the business for five years, said in Spanish. “There is no freedom of expression.

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These links between sports medicine journals and the sports drinks industry may help to explain a characteristic of the sports drinks literature that is familiar to those who have analysed drug trials over the past 30 years—the relative (or almost complete) absence of negative studies.

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What the hell IS that thing? A bloated, pig-like carcass spotted beneath the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend has spooked New Yorkers buzzing about mutant river “monsters.” Photographer Denise Ginley shot pics of the rotting, sand-covered corpse on Sunday. “My boyfriend and I were walking along the East River on our way to a farmer’s market when we spotted it among some driftwood on a small stretch of sand below the Brooklyn Bridge that you can barely call a beach,” she emailed the Daily News.

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Domino’s worker Jose Reyes told police that he was delivering a pizza around 9 PM when he was approached by two men, one of whom threatened to shoot Reyes if he did not “give him the money and pizza.” Reyes said he handed over $20, his HTC cell phone, and the pizza. Hamer, seen in the adjacent mug shot, told investigators that he “participated as a look out and provided protection for the other male during the robbery.” Cops noted, “Hamer received three slices of Pizza for his participation in this robbery.”

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Four people walking or playing on New York City beaches have suffered puncture wounds from needles in the sand in the last three weeks, park officials said. In the most recent incident, a lifeguard on duty at Rockaway Beach stepped on a needle at Beach 139th Street Tuesday afternoon, officials said. The other three people were wounded over the last three weeks on Staten Island. On July 16, a 63-year-old woman stepped on a hypodermic needle on Cedar Grove Beach, cutting her foot. On July 14, a 37-year-old man was stuck in the hand by a needle while he was on the sand at South Beach, near Father Capodanno Boulevard and Sand Lane. And on July 4, a 40-year-old man was stuck by a needle at South Beach. All three beachgoers were taken to Staten Island University Hospital North. “You don’t know where these needles come from,” said Crystal Matis of Elm Park, who was at the beach Wednesday with her young daughter. “It’s very scary.”

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Villagers in Russia’s south Urals region have stumbled upon a gruesome discovery — four barrels left in a forest containing 248 human fetuses, prompting an official probe, officials said Tuesday. Police in the Sverdlovsk region said the fetuses, preserved in formaldehyde, were kept in barrels with tags marked with surnames and numbers.

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A 17-year-old boy was arrested after police found him lying completely naked in the middle of a street while apparently high on LSD. Police said the boy also jumped on the hood of their patrol car and broke out the windshield with his fists.

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A former teacher with an apparent “food fetish” is accused of asking a female student to put a pie down his pants, BBC News reported. The man is also accused of having inappropriate video-chats with his students, in which he asked them to smear themselves in ketchup and eggs and to pour sour milk into their underwear.

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Yes, George Jefferson was a head. He wasn’t just a fan of prog music – he actually cut an album with YES founder Jon Anderson. Called Festival of Dreams, it has never been released. Hemsley was pretty evangelical about his prog obsessions. Besides dancing on Dinah! (if someone has that video, please share!), he wore a shirt for the band Nektar while doing press. And he pulled every string he could to hang out with Daevid Allen of the band Gong. Allen later gave an interview to Magnet Magazine where he talked about the bizarre experience of visiting the short TV star and discovering the guy had an acid lab in his basement (which means if you were taking acid in LA in the 70s it may well have been coming from George Jefferson himself)

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Addicts in prison go to extreme lengths to get their fix. But scoring the drugs isn’t the only obstacle they face—how to shoot them up? With no works available, a heroin user in jail needs a little ingenuity. The result of this ingenuity is a “binky.” But even though these can be manufactured, not every user has his own—shakedowns and a lack of materials make them scarce. Prisoners try not to share, but when it comes right down to it, they’re likely to overcome their reservations. “I usually don’t share needles,” says one prisoner. “But if there’s only one binky, and my homeboy got the chiva, you know I’m taking a hit. Why wouldn’t I? This is prison, fool, and I’m trying to get blasted. I’ll deal with all the rest later.” The “rest” includes widespread HIV and Hep. C. But here’s how you make a binky:

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An Arlington Vermont company called Cremation Solutions is creating custom made cremation urns in the shape of your loved ones head. Thats right, with just one or two pictures of the persons face, and by using state of the art 3D imaging techniques, the company will make a polymer compound likeness of your loved one’s head and mount it on a marble base. Excellent. I know you’re probably wondering, so yes, the heads will have hair, for folks that had very closely cropped hair, it can simply be digitally added to the head, or the company will gladly add a wig, per your specifications. Ashes are loaded from the bottom and a beautiful brass nameplate is affixed to the heads luxurious black marble base.

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Solar Effects From 1948 to 1997, the Institute of North Industrial Ecology Problems in Russia found that geomagnetic activity showed three seasonal peaks each of those years (March to May, in July, and in October). Every peak matched an increased incidence of anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and suicide in the city Kirovsk. One explanation for the correlation is that solar storms desynchronize our circadian rhythm (biological clock). The pineal gland in our brain is affected by the electromagnetic activity. This causes the gland to produce excess melatonin, and melatonin is the brain’s built in “downer” that helps us sleep. “The circadian regulatory system depends on repeated environmental cues to [synchronize] internal clocks,” says psychiatrist Kelly Posner, Columbia University. “Magnetic fields may be one of these environmental cues.”

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A MAN is recovering in hospital after four men broke into his flat and cut off his penis. Police are hunting the masked intruders, who are thought to have acted over accusations that their victim was engaged in affairs with local women. The 41-year-old told cops he had been asleep when the men burst into his bedroom around 4am. “They put something over my head and pulled down my trousers and then they ran off. I was so shocked I didn’t feel a thing – then I saw I was bleeding and my penis was gone,” he said. Although emergency workers searched for the severed organ, they failed to locate it and believe it was taken away by the attackers.

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Uh oh, Chik-Fil-A: Looks like your half-assed attempt to cover up the fact that the Muppets recently ended a partnership with you over your anti-gay views just hit a little roadblock called “anyone with a computer.” How does it feel to be outed? Sorry no one bought your airtight “kids are trying to finger their kids’ meal toys” defense (seen below), or your sassy new fictional tween spokeswoman. Maybe you should stick to what you’re best at: putting pickles on chicken sandwiches and alienating customers with your creepy religious views.

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Bazooka Joe has endured for almost 60 years now, but few know the name of the man who created him (and his original gang; Bazooka Joe’s gang has been revamped a couple of times). That man is Wesley Morse, and he was a pornographic cartoonist. Morse is one of the only known artists of the famous Tijuana Bibles. These 8 page porno comic strips were wildly popular in the 30s and 40s; some were dirty jokes illustrated, some were porn parodies of famous stars or cartoons and some were wholly original tales. The vast majority of Tijuana Bible creators were anonymous but Morse, who also did pin-up art, was a known figure in the field. His most famous Bibles were tied in to the New York World’s Fair of 1939; legend has it that Morse sold his books at the Fair itself (a risky proposition in those more strict days). It was his Tijuana Bible work that actually got Morse the Bazooka Joe job.

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Recreational use of the club drug Ecstasy could cause memory problems, new research finds. The research is the first study of Ecstasy users before they begin to use the drug regularly, which helps rule out alternative causes for the memory loss, said study leader Daniel Wagner, a psychologist at the University of Cologne in Germany. “By measuring the cognitive function of people with no history of Ecstasy use and, one year later, identifying those who had used Ecstasy at least 10 times and remeasuring their performance, we have been able to start isolating the precise cognitive effects of this drug,” Wagner told LiveScience.

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While there are still some details to sort out, it’s pretty clear that making weapons at home using 3-D printers from commonly available materials is going to become much more commonplace in the near future. In fact, as 3-D printing technology matures, materials feedstock improves, and designs for weapons proliferate, we might soon see the day when nearly everyone will be able to print the weapons of their choice in the numbers they desire, all within the privacy of their own homes.

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Talk about extreme couponing! Three women in Arizona were arrested recently for selling counterfeit coupons—a lot of counterfeit coupons. After an eight-week undercover investigation, police raided three homes in the Phoenix area, seized $40 million worth of bogus coupons, and arrested the women, who were enjoying a life of “opulence and the money was the equivalent of drug cartel-type of stuff,” according to the police.

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Walmart’s Bad Kerning

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The human voice is the most natural and the most nuanced form of communication. Introduce new technology like email, instant messaging and the telephone and people start behaving differently. They tell an astonishing number of lies per day… or per conversation. Here’s how it differs depending on what sort of media you are using. And there’s also some advice on what you can do ti keep it real!

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The owner Krsihan Kutti Nair who built the restaurant that’s spread out over a centuries old Muslim cemetery, doesn’t know who the patrons in the basement floor are, but claims their presence has been great for business. And he’s right. Business is brisk at the bustling restaurant where the graves are scattered erratically. The plan wasn’t to begin a restaurant right in the middle of a cemetery. In India, however, where death and life mix as smoothly as tandoori chicken and rum, and reincarnation theories are a permanent fixture of folklore and Bollywood movies, people aren’t as spooked by graveyards as Westerners are. Plus, in a country of a billion with space at a premium, graveyards are often used for commercial and even residential purposes. The constant flow of relatives, who visit graveyards to visit their dead kin, has meant that these macabre locations are actually great from a business point of view.

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Recreational drugs called bath salts, which have gained popularity recently and have been in the news for their bizarre effects on users, have the potential for abuse and addiction, similar to that of cocaine. Bath salts, which, despite their name, have no use in the tub, are different variations of the compound called cathinone, an alkaloid that comes from the khat plant. Currently, 42 U.S. states have laws banning many substituted cathinones. Mephedrone is one of the most common derivatives of cathinone and was listed federally in October 2011 on Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act for one year, pending further study. Then on July 9, 2012, President Barack Obama signed a law placing bath salts containing mephedrone or the stimulant MDPV onto the controlled substances list. The drugs can cause a laundry list of body and mind changes, including dizziness, delusions, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, seizures, nausea, vomiting and even death.

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In the first-ever nationwide crackdown on the synthetic drug industry, law enforcement officers arrested more than 90 people, seized $36 million in cash and more than 4.8 million packets of synthetic cannabinoids Wednesday, authorities said. Agents also confiscated material to make 13.6 million more packets and 167,000 packets of synthetic hallucinogens, more commonly known as bath salts. In addition, materials to make 392,000 more packets of bath salts were seized. Operation Log Jam, a joint effort between the Drug Enforcement Administration and federal and local agencies, was conducted in more than 90 cities spanning 30 states, DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said at a news conference Thursday. She said the raids included 29 manufacturing facilities at every level of the industry, from small-scale operations to large warehouses.

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Paul Frampton, 68, said he thought that he was to meet Denise Milani, a Czech-born glamour model and former Miss Bikini World in a hotel, and was asked by a man in the lobby to look after a suitcase that he was told belonged to her. The suitcase contained 2kg of cocaine hidden in its lining. Dr Frampton now believes that a fraudster was posing as 32-year-old Miss Milani in an online chat room. The physicist, who has a double first from Brasenose College, Oxford, and has collaborated with winners of the Nobel Prize, was stopped from boarding a flight from Buenos Aires to Peru in January after customs officials found the cocaine. Since then he has been on remand in Argentina’s Villa Devoto jail and faces a 16-year sentence if convicted.

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Mangino pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a 15-year-old girl who was in his custody in March 2011. He was child while still an Aurora Police officer for having sexually explicit pictures of the girl on his cell phone. Chief Deputy District Attorney J.P. Moore said during Thursday’s sentencing the March 2011 crime was not an isolated incident but rather a pattern of conduct. “Mangino took advantage of his position as a police officer…the violation of trust was beyond the victim, the violation also extended to the Aurora Police Department and the community,” he said. Aurora Police Chief Daniel J. Oates says, “Mr. Mangino, by his perverse and sexually deviant actions, did great harm to the image of the Aurora Police Department. He insulted and offended all the wonderful men and women of this agency.”

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Cops calculate the “street value.” It’s a branch of mathematics in which economies of scale meet public relations. By envisioning thousands of transactions that will never occur — and sometimes padding the numbers on top of that — law-enforcement agencies can wind up doubling, tripling, quadrupling, quintupling, sextupling or even septupling what the confiscated drugs are worth to the bulk-level dealers who got popped. In the hands of a narcotics cop with a calculator, $2 million of heroin can become $9 million, $500,000 worth of meth can become $2.5 million, coke worth less than $1 million can become several million.

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Woven into the fabric of the human body is an intricate system of proteins known as cannabinoid receptors that are specifically designed to process cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the primary active components of marijuana. And it turns out, based on the findings of several major scientific studies, that human breast milk naturally contains many of the same cannabinoids found in marijuana, which are actually extremely vital for proper human development. Cell membranes in the body are naturally equipped with these cannabinoid receptors which, when activated by cannabinoids and various other nutritive substances, protect cells against viruses, harmful bacteria, cancer, and other malignancies. And human breast milk is an abundant source of endocannabinoids, a specific type of neuromodulatory lipid that basically teaches a newborn child how to eat by stimulating the suckling process.

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A wealthy businessman – and husband of six – has died after allegedly being forced into a marathon sex session with his ‘jealous’ wives. Nigerian Uroko Onoja was having sex with the youngest of his spouses when the remaining five are reported to have set upon him with knives and sticks – and demanded that he have sex with each of them too. Mr Onoja went on to have intercourse with four of his wives in succession, but ‘stopped breathing’ as the fifth was making her way to the bed in Ogbadibo, according to Nigeria’s Daily Post. Two women have been arrested following the incident in the state of Benue last week, said the report, which used the term ‘raped to death’ to describe the businessman’s fate.

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A substance marketed as a natural stimulant in nutrition and sports supplements has proven to be entirely synthetic, investigators reported. Chemical analysis of 1,3-dimethylamylamine (DMAA) from supplements found it indistinguishable from two known synthetic versions of the compound. Purportedly derived from geranium plants, DMAA did not show up in analyses of extracts from eight different types of geranium.

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Fire officials said 21 people at an event hosted by motivational speaker Tony Robbins suffered burns while walking across hot coals and three of the injured were treated at hospitals. The injuries took place during the first day Thursday of a four-day event at the San Jose Convention Center hosted by Robbins called “Unleash the Power Within.” Most of those hurt had second and third degree burns, said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Reggie Williams. Walking across hot coals on lanes measuring 10 feet long and heated to between 1,200 to 2,000 degrees provides attendees an opportunity to “understand that there is absolutely nothing you can’t overcome,” according to the motivational speaker’s website.

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At the same time, one branch of that thinking has itself evolved into a new project: the notion of creating downloadable chemistry, with the ultimate aim of allowing people to “print” their own pharmaceuticals at home. Cronin’s latest TED talk asked the question: “Could we make a really cool universal chemistry set? Can we ‘app’ chemistry?” “Basically,” he tells me, in his office at the university, with half a grin, “what Apple did for music, I’d like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs.”

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Kacavas said Kwiatkowski engaged in “diversion,” an act in which a person injects a drug with a syringe and leaves behind another syringe filled with a substance such as saline. By doing a switch, rather than just taking the syringe, it becomes more difficult to detect drugs that have gone missing.

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The draw to see any DJ live usually stems from an affinity for their original productions, so their skills in the studio should be able to make up for the fact that they are going to just “hit play.” These guys get more music submissions than anyone on the planet; is it really that hard to find new material to play out? They spend countless hours on planes with their laptops and production tools at the ready; is it really that hard to put together a new mashup or bootleg before a set? I miss the days where I would say “Whoa, what is this?!” instead of “Ugh, this bootleg again?” As much as it sucks when Shazam can’t ID a track, it sucks even more when you know every single song being played. If the current trajectory of DJ sets continues, it won’t be long before everyone catches on to what’s really going on here. In the same way that mainstream radio stations have killed songs by playing them far too often, DJs are quickly doing the same.

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I think given about 1 hour of instruction, anyone with minimal knowledge of ableton and music tech in general could DO what im doing at a deadmau5 concert. Just like i think ANY DJ in the WORLD who can match a beat can do what “ANYONE else” (not going to mention any names) is doing on their EDM stages too.

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Traditionally, a DJ spun vinyl records on turntables and would change his set every night. So what about guys who play on laptops? Those who spend more time raising their hands than mixing? Or those whose presence is lost behind intricate light shows? Esteemed electronic producer deadmau5, who recently graced the cover of rock bible Rolling Stone wearing his namesake, robo-rodent mask, decided to blow the whistle himself with a refreshingly frank tumblr post entitled “We All Hit Play.” Explaining how his pre-planned stage show works, he admits that the term “live” is an overstatement. But his tone is strangely defensive and he unjustly lumps DJs into the argument, reducing their craft to mindless beat-matching: “I had that skill down when I was 3.”

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The library has been stung by complaints about the content, including explicit pornography, that some people watch in front of others. To address the issue, the library over the last six weeks has installed 18 computer monitors with plastic hoods so that only the person using the computer can see what is on the screen. “It’s for their privacy, and for ours,” said Michelle Jeffers, the library spokeswoman. The library will also soon post warnings on the screens of all its 240 computers to remind people to be sensitive to other patrons — a solution it prefers to filtering or censoring images. It is an issue playing out not just at libraries, but in cafes and gyms, on airplanes, trains and highways, and just about any other place where the explosion of computers, tablets and smartphones has given rise to a growing source of dispute: public displays of mature content.

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Just over a year ago, we broke the story of Silk Road, the underground online market that’s like an eBay for illegal drugs. It’s been thriving ever since. But as the summer drags on, Silk Road users are becoming increasingly paranoid over a series of unexplained disappearances. And the Drug Enforcement Agency has now revealed it’s investigating the site. Is Silk Road really as invincible as it seems? In early July, the DEA told the Austin TV news station KXAN that it was investigating Silk Road, where users openly buy and sell drugs, from heroin to ecstacy and pot. New York Senator Chuck Schumer had asked the DEA to look into the site after we first wrote about it about a year ago, but this is the first public acknowledgement that the DEA has heeded his call.

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The best part of waking up? Not exactly. County employees in Anaconda got an unexpected morning jolt last month after someone left urine and feces in their coffee pot at the courthouse. Police Chief Tim Barkell said the prank could land felony assault charges against the culprit, who both urinated into the can of coffee grounds and four days later smeared feces directly in the machine. Two county employees are being tested for hepatitis A after they unknowingly drank the coffee tainted with urine. Nobody else drank the coffee. Thanks Jasmine

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A species of termite found in the rainforests of French Guiana takes altruism seriously: aged workers grow sacks of toxic blue liquid that they explode onto their enemies in an act of suicidal self-sacrifice to help their colonies (see video). The “explosive backpacks” of Neocapritermes taracua, described in Science today1, grow throughout the lifetimes of the worker termites, filling with blue crystals secreted by a pair of glands on the insects’ abdomens. Older workers carry the largest and most toxic backpacks. Those individuals also, not coincidentally, are the least able to forage and tend for the colony: their mandibles become dull and worn as the termites age, because they cannot be sharpened by moulting.

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On June 2, 2009, an apartment superintendent in New Brunswick, N.J., stumbled upon what he thought was a terrorist hideout and called 911. It was really an NYPD operation to conduct surveillance well outside its jurisdiction

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A gardener who carved a giant bush into a hand displaying a rude gesture has been ordered to remove it after being accused of committing a public order offence. Richard Jackson has displayed the offending topiary, which shows the middle-finger sign, in his garden for the last eight years. The 53-year-old has now been told by the council to alter it after a neighbour complained, but he has refused to comply.

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Thanks Nico

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The Who announced on Wednesday that they’re playing at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on Feb. 26 as part of their 2012-2013 North American tour. It’s their first Providence show since 1975; a scheduled 1979 show was canceled due to security concerns by then-Mayor Vincent A. Cianci in the wake of a fatal crowd stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati. If you were headed for that cancelled show, you may finally make it. Dunk general manager Larry Lepore said on Thursday that anyone who still has a ticket for the 1979 Who Providence concert can trade it in for a free ticket to February’s show. The vintage ticket will be donated to charity, Lepore says: “It’s got to be worth something.”

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The FBI is consulting local police and vendors about technology currently in use that can spot crooks and terrorists by interpreting the symbolism of their tattoos, according to government documents. The inquiry follows work already underway at the bureau and Homeland Security Department to add iris and facial recognition services to their respective fingerprint databases. The FBI on Friday issued a request for information on existing databases “containing tattoo/symbol images, their possible meanings, gang affiliations, terrorist groups or other criminal organizations.” The mass collection of multiple biometric markers, potentially including vocal tracks and handwriting samples, has upset immigrant communities who say the FBI and DHS are misusing the technology to deport innocent people.

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All of the US has turned to Aurora, Colorado after a Friday morning shooting left more than a dozen movie-goers dead. But while the latest massacre has scarred millions of Americans, it’s also just another item added to a list of gruesome sprees. According to an ongoing tally kept by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the United States is experiencing an average of around 20 mass shootings each year. While Friday morning’s incident inside of a Aurora movie theater has perhaps the unfortunate distinction of being the most violent in recent memory — taking no fewer than 12 lives and injuring around 50 more — it is only yet only one example out of many that has marred society this year. The Aurora massacre is believed to be one of the worst incident on American soil since a rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead. The Fort Hood, Texas massacre two years later also ended with massive bloodshed, as well, with 13 people losing their lives in that event.

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An Oregon man who stripped nude at Portland’s airport security to protest what he saw as invasive measures was found not guilty of indecent exposure. Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge David Rees ruled Wednesday that John Brennan’s act was one of protest and therefore, protected speech. Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Joel Petersen argued that Brennan’s strip-down was an act of indecent exposure. “I was aware of the irony of removing my clothes to protect my privacy,” Brennan said from the witness stand on Wednesday.

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The manager of the adult theater in Hollywood where actor-comedian Fred Willard was arrested said Los Angeles police have conducted checks there dozens of times since late 2011. Tiki Theater manager Kazi Jafor said that since November 2011, officers have been to the theater 40 times and made 23 arrests. Jafor said the theater displays in writing rules against lewd conduct. “If we see anybody in this activity, we try to stop them,” he said. He said three adult movies were showing on a continuous loop, including the “Client List” parody and “Follow Me 2.” Several people were in the theater when two uniformed vice officers conducted a spot check Wednesday night around 7:45 p.m. Jafor said he saw the officers talking to the 72-year-old actor before they placed him in handcuffs. “The police officers were telling him he did something wrong, he denied it,” Jafor said. According to the LAPD, Willard “engaged in a lewd act,” but police did not elaborate.

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A 9-year-old boy with a massive tumor was whisked from a dangerous neighborhood in Mexico in an armored vehicle by U.S. agents and taken across the border for treatment in New Mexico, his family said. The boy and his parents were snatched Thursday from the gang-infested neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez — one of the deadliest cities in the world — after members of a New Mexico Baptist church saw him near an orphanage and sought help. The parents of the child, identified by officials only as Jose to protect his family, said the tumor on his shoulder and neck has grown so large that it affects his eyesight and could move into his heart.

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Ellison says after learning she had not backed up her data on her home computer, the employee offered to buy the iPhone with a cracked screen she was replacing. She says he paid her $60 out of his own wallet, and promised to wipe clean her older iPhone after transferring the data to her new iPhone 4s. A day later, she realized her new iPhone 4s didn’t have any of her 900 photos, including suggestive personal photos and a video taken by her young children of themselves, joking after getting out of the shower. “I felt sick. I felt violated. I felt so embarrassed,” Ellison tells WTOP. Ellison called the Best Buy to complain, and asked a manager to call her. Instead, the Geek Squad employee called her, promising to retrieve her photos. “A few days later, he called back to tell me he’d made a CD at his house with all my photos, and when can I come get them. I could pick them up at his house,” Ellison said. Ellison hung up the phone.

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We know CFL bulbs are world-changingly efficient, producing the same level of light as their incandescent parents while using a quarter of the energy. But they’re still a relatively new device, and few long-term studies have been carried out on them. One of the most recent, a new report from a team at Stony Brook, suggests CFLs might cause damage to skin by releasing UV rays.

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A “blur all faces” option in YouTube’s video enhancement tool lets a user edit their video, creating a new copy with obscured faces. After that, you can preview what the video will look like, then delete the blurless original. (There’s still some bugs to be worked out in facial recognition, but the feature goes live today.)

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The 18-year ran a 40-hour marathon session with the game in Taiwan before then he was reported to have booked a room at his local Internet café before plunging into Diablo III and foe the entire 40-hours he neither slept or stopped or had anything to eat. He was checked on by an employee of the cafe and was found lifeless on a table Sunday but he immediately woke up as he notched but after moving a few steps he collapsed and was immediately rushed to the hospital and he was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Hospital authorities suspected that he probably suffered blood clots due the long period of sitting.

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Cheap, seemingly harmless and guaranteeing a night of raucous laughter, so-called ‘hippy crack’ is increasingly popular with celebrities and their well-heeled young fans alike. Even Prince Harry was seen indulging two years ago. There is just one problem: nitrous oxide is no more legal than it is innocuous. Despite being touted openly at music festivals and in bars and nightclubs across the country, sale of the gas for recreational use is very much against the law. As for being innocuous, that is only true if one ignores the alarming side-effects it can cause: strokes, hallucinations, seizures, blackouts, incontinence, stress on the heart, chronic depression and even — in cases of prolonged use — depleted bone marrow. Few would tack the word ‘harmless’ on to such a list.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin is going to be joined by Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon and police officials when he signs an emergency rule banning 83 new dangerous drugs commonly known as “bath salts.”

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The U.S. government confirmed that Bolivia has fewer coca plantations but it is producing more cocaine because drug traffickers are using a more “efficient” process known as the “Colombian method,” according to an interview published Sunday in the daily Pagina Siete.

My body is a place where drugs and alcohol have made germs afraid to live. I have no health problems to speak of, touch wood.

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“The narcotics and a shotgun were found hidden in a baby crib inside the residence,” Ruiz said in a statement. “Investigators believe the suspect in the case is involved with the distribution of narcotics to other drug dealers in the city of Burbank.”

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Oregon and two other states will no longer allow certain food stamp applicants to deduct medical marijuana expenses from their incomes after federal officials threatened the states with penalties. The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a nationwide memo to regional directors of the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after The Oregonian contacted the agency about the practice last week. The newspaper surveyed 17 states that permit marijuana for medicinal use and found three – Oregon, New Mexico and Maine – allowed certain applicants to deduct the cost of the drug from their income when applying for the benefit.

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For about a year, the Warren County Drug Task Force had been investigating the trafficking of high-grade marijuana being sold to students at Mason and King Mills high schools, which they say they traced to the 17-year-old. When officials searched the boy’s house, they found more than $6,000 in cash in his bedroom at his parents’ house. As part of the investigation, task force members searched locations in Blue Ash, Norwood and Hamilton where they seized more than 600 hydroponic high grade marijuana plants . Officials with the Warren County Drug Task Force say the street value from the pot was $5,000 a pound. They seized thousands of dollars in grow equipment as well. Authorities valued the drug operation at more than $3 million and say they believe the 17-year-old was grossing more than $20,000 a month.

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“Since day one, President Obama has led the way in reforming our Nation’s drug policies by, among other things, addressing drug use and its consequences as a public health problem,” reads a statement posted on We the People, the petition site started by the, er, Obama administration. If you’ve been the victim of a federal raid—one in which, say, your two-year-old was yanked out if his crib—or worked at one of the 500 California medical pot dispensaries the DEA and the IRS have shut down in the last year, you’re probably rolling your eyes right now.

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That kind of winking and nudging is typical in the emergent genre of ads aimed at stoners, a once taboo marketing approach recently embraced most blatantly by the fast food industry. Just look at the actor in the next burger commercial you see. Odds are he’ll be a glassy-eyed Spicoli, dropping coded reefer references (see Jack in the Box’s favorite mumbling pothead). Companies as big as Taco Bell and General Mills have gotten in on the act and they’re reaping the rewards. Taco Bell, with its Doritos-taco hybrid and “late night munchies” tagline saw a six percent sales increase in the first quarter of 2012. General Mills, which revived Cheech and Chong for a Fiber One web campaign, deemed the ad so successful it plans to do more just like it. Then there’s Sonic and its hallucinating twenty-something dreaming of man-sized cheesy tots. Carl’s Jr. is touting its “wake and bake” habit. Denny’s is promoting a reggae-loving unicorn.

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The drug helps her keep focus on the giant statue of popsicle sticks she’s building with her kids and relaxes her so she can get through the rest of the night without stressing. “It can make folding a pile of laundry fun,” says Margaret, 45, who asked that we not use her last name for fear of getting in trouble with the law. “If I didn’t smoke, that’d be three piles later in the week.” Still, she doesn’t flaunt her marijuana use. Her sons aren’t allowed to go into the room where she keeps the drugs locked up, and she hides it from other moms who would keep their kids away if they knew she smoked pot. “Being judged for doing something nontoxic and totally organic, enjoying a god-given plant, by moms who suck back two bottles of Chardonnay like sports drinks feels like s—,” complains Margaret. “Any hypocrisy is hard to swallow. A drunk mother is pathetic and I often leave parties when I experience other mothers tying one on.”

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Australia’s peak drugs body says it is concerned by reports young Aboriginal people in central Australia are stealing deodorant from supermarkets to get high. An Alice Springs youth organisation says there is a deodorant sniffing outbreak in the town involving children as young as seven. The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia’s David Templeman says it is a dangerous situation. “In some cases, it can include hallucinations and drowsiness and coma and that can then sometimes lead to death,” he said.

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Man allegedly DWI on a Wal-Mart scooter

Houma police say a 24-year-old man is accused of driving a shopping scooter while drunk. Police say Thomas J. Phillip’s breath tested at more than double the amount considered legal proof of intoxication under Louisiana law when he was pulled over Sunday. Police say they got a call about a motorized scooter pulling a wheelchair, and found Phillip on the scooter and a friend of his in the wheelchair. They say Phillip was arrested after allegedly telling police he’d been at a Wal-Mart store and decided to take the scooter for a joyride.

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In a sign that the Garden State’s budding medical marijuana program is finally moving forward, the first crop has been growing hydroponically for about a month in a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in an undisclosed location, officials said. The first plants are about a foot high, said Joseph Stevens, president of the Greenleaf Compassion Center, the first licensed provider of medical pot. By mid-September, the center’s Montclair dispensary should be open and accepting patients to buy marijuana, he said.

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New York lawmakers have proposed barring spending on alcohol, strip clubs, cruise ships and psychics. “It’s a slap in the face to people who are on public assistance and are trying to get off, when others abuse the system,” said state Sen. Thomas Libous, a Republican. Ann Valdez of Brooklyn’s Coney Island section said it’s “crazy” for the government to be dictating where people spend their assistance instead of creating living-wage jobs. She said she struggles just to cover toiletries, clothing and other expenses for herself and her 13-year-old son on the $120 she receives every two weeks. “I don’t know one person who uses their EBT money to buy liquor or anything like that,” Valdez said. Washington state lawmakers have prohibited purchases of tattoos, body piercings, alcohol and tobacco. Bars, bail bond agencies, gambling establishments and strip clubs are also now required to deactivate the ability of their ATMs to accept benefit cards.

There are lots of thieves in China, and they are all very brave! In the following, we will have two videos to show you how those professional thieves using a pair of chopsticks to steal people’s mobile phone

For a reason or reasons unknown, but possibly explained by the lighter and what may or may not be a baggie of contraband on his lap, 21-year-old Steven Mulhall stole Judge Michael Orlando’s nameplate from the door of the judge’s courtroom in Broward County, Florida. At some point thereafter, Mulhall posed for this picture with his prize, and his girlfriend appears to have posted it on Facebook. (They are only the latest in a growing horde of people who don’t seem to understand that by posting things on the “Internet,” you make them “public,” thus creating potentially incriminating “evidence.”) A tipster told police about the photo and gave them Mulhall’s name and address.

Police arrested 52-year-old Dr. Anthony Monteleone on Wednesday in the back parking lot of his office. They say he was caught snorting lines of suspected cocaine and then going inside Katsur Dental and Orthodontics in Edgewood to treat his patients. Undercover agents grabbed Monteleone after they witnessed him using what appeared to be cocaine. “There was a police officer observing what appeared to be drug use,” Edgewood Police Chief Robert Payne said. “It was outside the car.” Chief Payne, who made the arrest, asked Dr. Monteleone if he had a problem. The doctor, according to the criminal complaint, admitted to using marijuana, Xanax and cocaine.

The art world’s most intriguingly anonymous character, Banksy, is known for appropriating all sorts of outdoor and arguably “public” spaces. Who else does that? The advertising industry of course. I think one has to agree with his sentiments, albeit with a wry smile given his own predilection for placing his art in places our eyeballs can’t avoid. Here’s his statement

The Hopkins group that Johnson is part of has been investigating the use of psilocybin, the hallucinogen in “magic mushrooms,” for smoking cessation and to help terminal cancer patients cope with their illness. They’ve also taken a look at Salvinorin A, a hallucinogen in salvia, too. Why would hallucinogens be suited for these kinds of treatments? Johnson said people taking the drugs in the studies he’s helped with report that it is “one of the most meaningful experiences — or the most meaningful — in their life.” Some says the “trip” changes the direction of their lives and can trigger a redefinition of how they see themselves. That could be as profound as, “I’m now a nondrinker, or whatever the adciction may be,” he said.

✖ The Language of Persuasion – Government Or Regime?

“Police are warning that when cannabis plants reach the final stages of maturity the odour they release has carcinogenic properties. “Officers who deal with the plants use ventilation masks and protective suits and people who have plants in their home, especially anyone with young children, may be exposing their family to a health risk.”

✖ From Road Salt to Pink Goo, What’s In the Food?

In the modern-day world in which we live you never really know to what extent the corrupt globalists will go to profiteer from adding deadly poisons, toxins, drugs, and chemicals to our food and water supply. Not only do we have to pay attention as consumers to fluoride levels in our drinking water, now we must watch for a whole slew of toxic and gruesome additives in the foods we eat.

Neil Hope grew up in the 1980s before an audience of millions as a star in a pair of gritty Canadian television dramas, “Degrassi Junior High” and its sequel, “Degrassi High.” The shows were cultural touchstones in Canada and cult favorites in the United States, where they anticipated teenage docudramas like MTV’s “Real World” and soaps like “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

The researchers found that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. The brains of honeybees that were more likely than others to seek adventure exhibited distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans. The findings present a new perspective on honeybee communities, which were thought to be highly regimented and comprised of a colony of interchangeable workers taking on a few specific roles to serve their queen. It now seems as though individual honeybees differ in their desire to perform particular tasks and these differences could be down to variability in bees’ personalities. This supports a 2011 study at Newcastle University that suggested that honeybees exhibit pessimism, suggesting that insects might have feelings.

Being a Nazi, this public servant obviously didn’t miss an opportunity to couch as many of these regulations as he could in racist or anti-Semitic terms. Such, after all, are the National Socialist equivalent of soothing conventional wisdom. But that’s just it: If you’re a Nazi, and you can pass something you don’t like off as a “Negroid excess,” or a manifestation of “Jewish Fremason-ry,” it helps you with the kind of Nazi cred you need insulate yourself from having to justify what’s wrong with the music as music. More than that, it helps you hide your fear of the deeper resonance the music has with people as people. In an interview given in Prague in 1968, relayed in Talkin’ Moscow Blues, Skvorecky noted that “jazz is, above all, a kind of fraternity.” That’s not an entirely obvious thought if you come from the same part of the world jazz itself does.

Keeping the artificial intelligence genie trapped in the proverbial bottle could turn an apocalyptic threat into a powerful oracle that solves humanity’s problems, said Roman Yampolskiy, a computer scientist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. But successful containment requires careful planning so that a clever breed of artificial intelligence cannot simply threaten, bribe, seduce or hack its way to freedom. “It can discover new attack pathways, launch sophisticated social-engineering attacks and re-use existing hardware components in unforeseen ways,” Yampolskiy said. “Such software is not limited to infecting computers and networks — it can also attack human psyches, bribe, blackmail and brainwash those who come in contact with it.”

The TSA is clearly no fan of the 4th Amendment, nor of 5th Amendment due process rights, and now this blatant attempt to manipulate the free press with “strong caution” hits at Amendment the First. Why strong caution? Are there repercussions for journalists that fail to heed this “advice?” Because, you know, if I were a member of the free press and the federal government asked me to censor myself, I’d happily comply . . . . . . . . . riiight. I have news for the federal government: Americans will not take censorship in any form. We thought we made this clear when you tried to force SOPA on us.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Setting your Facebook page to “friends only” and your Twitter feed to private is a good idea, especially if you’re hunting for a job or trying to get into the college of your choice. You want to be selective in the details you reveal about yourself and, quite frankly, what you post on a social network is none of their damned business. But it appears even that may not be enough to protect you any more. Bob Sullivan of MSNBC reports that some state agencies and colleges are forcing prospective employees and students to grant them full access to their social networks.

✖ Kony 2012 Hoax Exposed

Kony 2012 is but another piece of slick propaganda designed to tug on the heart strings – and the purse strings – of ignorant Americans who are clueless about the real reasons why the globalists are now moving into Africa in a big way. Invisible Children’s connections to USAID and thus the CIA should put the effort in context. Africa is one of several targets prized by the globalists as they move to grab vital natural resources, consolidate power and unleash their monetary enslavement and world totalitarian government end game around the globe.

Today is an incredibly sad day for fans of comic books, concept art, and downright anything science fiction. Artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud, who provided some of the most stunning scifi and fantasy art ever to grace a page, has succumbed to illness at the age of 73. It’s pretty hard to overstate the hand Moebius had in some of science fiction’s most phantasmagoric cinema. You know his work even if you’ve never realized it. In addition to providing preliminary designs for such films as Alien, Tron, The Abyss, Masters of the Universe, The Fifth Element, and Willow (which were awesome albeit unused), the artist provided concept art for El Topo director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-realized Dune adaptation, which was to star Mick Jagger and boast a soundtrack by Pink Floyd.

In the New Yorker article, Jane Mayer quotes you as saying, “I actually had hopes for Obama.” What’s your opinion on the Obama administration’s stated support for whistle-blowers and, more generally, his counterterrorism record? Worse than Bush. I have to say that. I actually voted for Obama. It’s all rhetoric for me now. As Americans we were hoodwinked. He’s expanding the secrecy regime far beyond what the Bush even intended, interestingly enough. I think Bush is probably like, “Whoa.”

In October, Mother Jones revealed that the FBI is notorious for creating supposed terrorist groups from scratch and then framing patsies in order to claim the government is protecting the United States from terrorists and also breathe life into an otherwise moribund war on mostly nonexistent terrorism. Sabu’s role as an FBI provocateur working inside LulzSec reveals the government is attempting to do the same in order to push its so-called cybersecurity agenda. The establishment is eager to pass a raft of legislation to closely regulate the internet, strip the medium of its anonymity, and close it down as an activism and alternative media tool.

That is what the census says. Andrew Leonard in Salon notes that it is a bit misleading, that “4.7 million are for “seasonal use” only, the Census tells us — unoccupied vacation homes, in other words. 4.1 million are for rent, 2.3 million are for sale, and the remaining 7.5 million “were vacant for a variety of other reasons.” The census also lists the total number of homeless in America as 759,101, so there are 24 empty houses for every homeless person in America. What a shocking misallocation of resources, materials and energy.

Gerald Zirnstein grinds his own hamburger these days. Why? Because this former United States Department of Agriculture scientist and, now, whistleblower, knows that 70 percent of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contains something he calls “pink slime.” “Pink slime” is beef trimmings. Once only used in dog food and cooking oil, the trimmings are now sprayed with ammonia so they are safe to eat and added to most ground beef as a cheaper filler. It was Zirnstein who, in an USDA memo, first coined the term “pink slime” and is now coming forward to say he won’t buy it. “It’s economic fraud,” he told ABC News. “It’s not fresh ground beef. … It’s a cheap substitute being added in.”

This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA’s insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe (radiation what?) and non-invasive (nude pictures who?). The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort. The TSA has been provided this video in advance of it being made public to give them an opportunity to turn off the scanners and revert to the metal detectors. I personally believe they now have no choice but to turn them off.

Planned Parenthood exposes children to sexual material in order to seed a generation of sex addicts, who will become future customers for the abortion giant. This report exposes Planned Parenthood’s sex-education programs, using images from Planned Parenthood’s own websites, social networks, and events.

The secret’s out: Men are wearing tights. Pantyhose for men, or “mantyhose,” have been popular throughout Europe for years and now the trend – even outside the ballet barre – has crept stateside.

Today’s leading cola beverages contain high levels of a substance linked to cancer in animals, according to new research. An independent study commissioned by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) uncovered 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MI, in Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi at levels 4.8 times greater than those allowed in beverages in California. 4-MI is a byproduct of the reaction that produces the caramel coloring in brown sodas. The chemical has been found to be carcinogenic in animal studies. The state of California has banned 4-MI in any amount that could potentially lead to one cancer case in 100,000 people. However the levels found in these 4 leading Cola brands indicated a lifetime risk of 5 cancers out of 100,000, assuming that people drink one soft drink per day. That risk rises to 10 cancers out of 100,000 people who drink only soft drinks containing caramel coloring.

Anderson Cooper attempted, and miserably failed, to mitigate the damage from the discovery that one of the poster boys for foreign intervention in Syria was manufacturing complete propaganda for Western consumption. The video below is the original video exposing “Danny” as a vicious propagandist actively working against the interests of the Syrian people. This is just more exploitation of the good intentions of people around the world for nefarious ends. These revelations further damage the credibility of the already highly untrustworthy Syrian rebels, much like the Libyan rebels delegitimized themselves. Stay weary of the effort to push us into military intervention in Syria and question all sources of information and the “statistics” we are fed by the Western establishment media. Keep in mind none of this is confirmed, the sources have a political interest in disseminating disinformation and so do those who report the claims made by so-called activists as gospel.

Two Cambridge graduates have thought of a clever way of making enough money to pay the debts they built up attending university. Facing a combined bill of £50,000 ($80,000), Ed Moyse and Ross Harper started a business called Buy My Face. The product: advertising space on their faces. The pair started by selling the space to family and friends for just £1-per-day, but the price is now up to £400-per-day.they even have a sponsor in Ernst & Young. They started the business last October and it appears to still be going strong.

A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth, Ohio oil and gas regulators said Friday as they announced a series of tough new regulations for drillers.

The HIV rate among black women living in some U.S. cities is the same rate as that of some African countries, according to a new multicenter study presented Thursday at the 19th Conference of Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. The jarring findings acknowledge that HIV is not an infection that has been eradicated, but one that has been somewhat forgotten, researchers said. The new data come from the ISIS study (The Women’s HIV Seroincidence Study), and reflect an analysis of at-risk women in six urban areas of the United States that have some of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS: Baltimore, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Washington, D.C., Newark and New York City. “This disease is alive and well in this country,” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, principal investigator for the Atlanta area of the study and professor of medicine and infectious disease at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “But this epidemic is the face of the forgotten people.”

A new condom that aims to enhance erections may also lift earnings and buyout prospects for unprofitable U.K. drugmaker Futura Medical Plc. Durex condoms made by partner Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc will contain a dose of Futura’s Zanifil gel inside the tip, boosting blood flow within the penis. The product results in firmer, larger and longer-lasting erections for men who may find wearing condoms challenging, according to Futura.

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are accused of hooliganism over the incident last month in which four members of the group cavorted and shouted a song protesting against the rule of Vladimir Putin in front of the iconostasis of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Mr Putin’s spokesman has described the performance as “disgusting” and said the prime minister and president-elect regarded it “negatively”. The two young women were arrested the night before Mr Putin won a third term in the Kremlin on Sunday, and have been remanded in custody until a trial next month. Pussy Riot formed in October last year and has focused on guerrilla activism against Putin, including an impromptu concert on Red Square. Its members use pseudonyms and wear brightly-coloured balaclavas and clothes for performances and interviews.

Rumors started among students, and then instructors, about the teacher’s alter persona before it came to the attention of Haydock Intermediate School officials. The district superintendent told KCAL9 that the videos do not involve any Oxnard school district students. According to a written notice sent to parents Tuesday, the school says the teacher does not face any criminal charges but has been placed on administrative leave: Oxnard Middle School Teacher Pulled From Classroom Amid Rumors Shes Working As Hard Core Porn Actress (credit: CBS) “It has been alleged that one of our teachers is depicted in at least one pornographic video and possibly others on the internet…These sites contain extremely graphic and inappropriate pornographic material.”The notice also warns parents to keep students away from social media sites, inappropriate outside networks and smartphones. The 30-year-old instructor’s identity has been withheld while the allegations are being investigated.

The issue that should have sparked panic in the survey is the total consensus among Israeli Jews – regardless of religious, ethnic or political differences – that the “guiding principle” for the country and for Judaism itself is “to remember the Holocaust.” Ninety-eight percent of the respondents consider it either fairly important or very important to remember the Holocaust, attributing to it even more weight than to living in Israel, the Sabbath, the Passover seder and the feeling of belonging to the Jewish people.

Students were told they were taking part in a study of how funds should be distributed in college – and offered a range of ethnic-based groups to share money between. After listening to Bruce Springsteen and the White Stripes, the students handed most of the money to white people. ‘Rock music is generally associated with white Americans, so we believe it cues white listeners to think about their positive association with their own in-group,’ said Heather LaMarre, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota. ‘That was enough for them to show more support for a student group representing mostly whites.’ After listening to Top 40 pop such as Gwen Stefani, Akon and Fergie, the students divided money more equally between white people, black people and latinos.

A commonly prescribed drug used to treat high blood pressure may have the unintended benefit of muting racist thoughts in those who take it. A new Oxford University research study found that Propranolol, which works to combat high blood pressure, anxiety, migraines, and a number of heart ailments, affects the same part of the central nervous system that regulates subconscious attitudes on race.

✖ Pat Robertson: Pot should be legal like alcohol

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government’s war on drugs has failed. The outspoken evangelical Christian and host of “The 700 Club” on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network he founded said the war on drugs is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. He said people should not be sent to prison for marijuana possession. The 81-year-old first became a self-proclaimed “hero of the hippie culture” in 2010 when he called for ending mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession convictions.

They call him “Twenty-Four.” Yoandri Hernandez Garrido’s nickname comes from the six perfectly formed fingers on each of his hands and the six impeccable toes on each foot. Hernandez is proud of his extra digits and calls them a blessing, saying they set him apart and enable him to make a living by scrambling up palm trees to cut coconuts and posing for photographs in this eastern Cuban city popular with tourists. One traveler paid $10 for a picture with him, Hernandez said, a bonanza in a country with an average salary of just $20 a month. “It’s thanks to my 24 digits that I’m able to make a living, because I have no fixed job,” Hernandez said.

✖ Celebrities with STDs – Famous People with STDs – STIs – VD

Famous Celebrities with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Welcome to the celebrities section of the STD Carrier Registry. Here you can browse our list of idolized (and not so idolized) people from Hollywood, professional sports, pornography, politics, literary writing, activism, and other notable segments of society. All celebs on the list correspond to detailed profiles containing pictures, some videos, and references to news reports.

Love is supposed to be everlasting. Unfortunately for many, the only permanent thing to come out of a relationship is an incurable sexually transmitted disease. And that’s why Cyrus Sullivan, of Portland, Ore., claims that he runs STD Carriers Disease Control and Prevention Services, a website that lists claimed and confirmed carriers by their names, locations, descriptions, and sometimes their photos. The database is completely open to the public — you don’t have to login to browse the listings, and many of the recently added carriers’ pics are displayed prominently on the site’s front page. Users submit photos freely. There are about 1,500 listings.

Watch out Facebook and Foursquare: there’s a new site that allows users to “check-in” when they are having, uh… protected sex! There’s a new batch of condoms with wrappers equipped with a QR code – a scannable barcode – giving users the ability to “check-in” when they use the contraceptive, according to Planned Parenthood. After scanning the QR code, users check in on wheredidyouwearit.com. The website displays an interactive map showing where users have checked in at. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest (PPGNW) released 55,000 condoms to colleges and universities in Washington state in honor of National Condom Week, which was Feb. 14 to Feb. 21.

It shows a couple of fights, one between two women just outside the mall that was broken up by a mall security guard and another inside the mall between what appears to be young males. In one scene, a man is knocked to the mall floor and appears unconscious. Other males can be seen running. After the incident, stores were briefly on lockdown and the video shows frightened shoppers trying to exit the mall. In December, police said they arrested three people in connection with the fights.

Lafayette said she was inside her home taking a nap on Saturday when someone knocked on her door. When she stepped outside, several Newton County deputies were in her yard. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, don’t tell me that the dogs got out,'” she said. She was worried her dogs got out and attacked someone. “A deputy told me I didn’t do anything wrong, I was the victim. I said, ‘Victim!’ I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, did someone kill my dog?’ He said, ‘No the neighbor behind you, they saw the teenager having sex with your female dogs.’ I said, ‘Having sex with my female dogs?’ I think they must have got it wrong,” said Lafayette. Lafayette didn’t believe them until they showed her the video her neighbors recorded. “And it showed him on his knees inside the kennel with my dog. He was on his knees like he was a dog,” said Lafayette. Police arrested 19-year old Bernard Archer and charged him with two counts of bestiality

Three male teachers at a US high school have been arrested and charged on suspicion of child seduction after admitted to passing around a 16-year-old student. Officials were called in after the male student revealed on 18 January the school band director, a swimming coach and a substitute Spanish teacher all engaged in physical relationships with him several times on school grounds. The boy, who cannot be name for legal reasons, claimed that many of the alleged acts, which range from touching and kissing to having sex in a car, took place on the grounds of North Putnam High School in Roachdale, central Indiana. According to Indiana state police, those arrested and charged were: substitute Spanish teacher Nicholas Vester, 24, who worked at the school for 12 weeks last autumn; band director Craig Rogers, 24, currently on paid leave; and volunteer swimming coach Brandon Largent, 20, a student at Ivy Tech community college.

For the last two years, the young girl never used make-up removers, so her mother, exasperated by Bae’s behaviour, contacted a TV station and told them Bae’s incredible story. During a variety show, dermatologists managed to convince Bae Dal-mi to finally remove the layers of make-up, and after a specialized check-up they found her skin was two times older than her actual age. All because of an obsession with beauty

A faulty battery caused an electronic cigarette to explode in a man’s mouth, taking out some of his front teeth, a chunk of his tongue and severely burning his face, fire officials said.

The Guinness World record was 250. Janine Keblish topped that by two pairs of underwear. Why? Keblish wanted to bring attention to a cause she’s involved with, Days for Girls. A few years ago Keblish and Celeste Mergens discovered a shameful secret on a trip to an orphanage in Kenya – a total lack of feminine hygiene products for young women. “Millions of women all over the world go without, resulting in infection and exploitation and even girls being sold into slavery. They also miss three months of education each year, just for lack of hygiene,” says Mergens. “And you wonder, how could this be happening in this day and age? The truth is, it’s taboo to talk about.”

The high incidence of open defecation in the Indian state of Bihar is not due to a lack awareness about toilets, according to this new Water for People video. In their view, it’s more of a supply chain, marketing problem. The toilets on offer are not particularly good.

It’s not every day that you receive a coupon for one of the priciest beverage chains in the world! Armed with my Starbucks Rewards card, I decided to take the opportunity to find out just how much money I could pour into a Trenta—Starbucks’ whopping 31 ounce cup! After about a half-hour with a laughing barista, we created the most expensive drink possible: one Java Chip Frappuccino in a Trenta cup, 16 shots of espresso, a shot of soy milk, caramel flavoring, banana puree, strawberry puree, vanilla beans, Matcha powder, protein powder, and a drizzle of caramel and mocha. Price: $23.60. The resulting beverage contains 1400mg of caffeine. According to Erowid, a widely respected drug catalog, a heavy caffeine dose is 400+mg. This drink has 3 times that. If I drank this all at once, it would put me in the hospital. Two of these would kill me.

Many strange archeological discoveries have been made in modern history. Hundreds of artifacts have been unearthed that have baffled scientists and challenged modern man’s view of history. Many of these objects have been labeled out of place artifacts or anachronisms. These archeological discoveries are always controversial and the scientific community is extremely selective in what they accept as fact. Every object on this list has been accused of being an elaborate hoax. In many cases, a conspiracy is the only explanation, without an extensive rewriting of the world’s history books. These artifacts tell a story of ancient civilizations, Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contracts, and mysterious technological advancements. Many of these archeological discoveries challenge the scientific theory of evolution, as well as many religious beliefs.

✰ Elderly junkies find ‘freedom’ at Dutch old-age home

In a tiny fourth-floor room overlooking The Hague’s city centre, a grey-haired man carefully plugged a small pipe with a ball of cocaine, lit up and drew a deep breath. “This is real freedom,” said 65-year-old William as a billow of white smoke poured from his nostrils and wafted through his apartment at Woodstock, the only Dutch home for elderly junkies and other addicts. The apartment block, flanked by a canal and a tram line, takes a unique approach to drug abuse by helping to keep ageing homeless people off the city’s streets and out of trouble with the law. “I like it here. Here there is no police watching you,” William told AFP as he rearranged the paraphernalia of his addiction on a small table: a pipe, a lighter, a mirror with traces of cocaine lines and an old credit card. “I can do what I want to do.”

✰ NH town to vote on whether to change name of pond at bishop’s urging

Voters in a small New Hampshire town will have the final say on whether to change the controversial name of a local pond. The small pond near the middle of Mont Vernon is known as Jew Pond. Town officials say it got its name back in the 1920s because the operators of a hotel that once stood next to it were Jewish. The name recently got the attention of New Hampshire Bishop Peter Libasci. He wrote a letter to the local newspaper saying the name conveyed contempt and urged townspeople to change it. Residents will decide in the March 13 election. Some residents told WMUR-TV that they don’t find the name offensive and that it’s part of the town’s history.

✰ Exposing the Severity of the Fukushima Disaster (Video)

Fukushima has had 5 major meltdowns now, in a disaster that is making experts say that it is larger than Chernobyl. Aljazeera reported in September that the radiation emitted from Fukushima would rival or surpass Chernobyl in only the weeks following the disaster. According to Aljazeera: “Experts say that the total radiation leaked will eventually exceed the amounts released from the Chernobyl disaster that the Ukraine in April 1986. This amount would make Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in history.” This news was from 2011, but the current news isn’t much better. After officials said they were going to perform a ‘cold shutdown’ to prevent any further issues, its now come out that the Fukushima reactor temperature now surpasses 752 degrees — whereas 100 degrees celsius was required for the cold shutdown. Tepco, the operators of the plant, say the thermometer is conveniently broken, but they have been known to conceal the truth from the public in the past.

The fight occurred between residents of a tenement with shared facilities, a common situation in India’s densely populated financial matrix. The incident brings India’s sanitation problems and the lack of proper facilities sharply into focus. Simon Lingeree was killed last month when he got into a heated argument with Santosh Kargutkar while using a public toilet. The latter became highly impatient while waiting his turn. When Mr. Lingeree exited the toilet, he was physically assaulted. There were no weapons involved, just fists, but the young man was struck a fatal blow to the crotch. The killer quickly fled the scene and was later arrested.

The strong odor of marijuana from the evidence room at a local police station in Florida seems to be a real problem for some whiny cops. “The biggest complaint is how strong the odor is,” said Atlantic Beach Police Commander Victor Gualillo, reports ActionNewsJax.com. All seized dope collected during busts is stored in a 200-square-foot evidence room at the station. “Anytime you store that much marijuana it’s rather pungent,” Commander Gualillo complained. But it seems you count on this bunch of overwrought weenies to dramatize the situation way beyond just the smell. They’re talking about “doing something” before “somebody gets hurt.” “I’m told there are serious health concerns,” claimed Atlantic Beach City Manager Jim Hanson about all the collected drugs in the evidence room. “There are other evidence technicians who have gotten sick,” Hanson claimed.

Adrian Watson, 41, was arrested by police after neighbours complained of a strong smell of gas coming from a house in Huddersfield Road, Elland. Bradford Crown Court heard how officers at first thought there may have been a leak, but after entering the property found 24 cannabis plants and growing equipment. They also found documents in the house with Watson’s name on and another address in Dewsbury Road, Elland, where they later found Watson as well as more cannabis. A total of 2.24kg of the drug was found, with a street value of around £19,000. Police experts believe there was enough cannabis to last up to 594 days, but Watson told police that his habit of 15 joints a day meant he would have got through the drug much quicker. He admitted producing cannabis for personal use.

News has come from France that some captive-born dolphins there have been recorded “talking in their sleep” — and talking in Whale, no less, not Dolphinese. The scientists involved say this would be the first time that dolphins have been recorded mimicking sounds a significant period of time after hearing them. But there’s also the intriguing possibility that these sounds — virtually identical to sounds made by the humpback whale — may, if the dolphins are really asleep and not just resting, be direct expression of something the dolphins are dreaming.

“The sale of drugs (like K-72 and K-76) which have cobra venom is increasing at rave parties and in discos. These drugs enhance sensation and boost energy so that revellers can dance for longer hours,” a senior officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) told IANS on condition of anonymity. “The sales increase a week before Valentine’s Day in Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region) and are consumed at hushed-up parties,” he added.

✰ Morgellons: Static Electricity or Moving Nano-Machines? You Decide

Contrary to what the CDC says, Morgellons is not a delusion. I have personally felt and seen my hair move by itself, I’ve had strange fibres come out of my skin, I constantly feel like there are bugs crawling over my body. I have witnessed many of my fresh organic vegetables, fruits and meat moving by itself, causing me to have to throw out the majority of the food I’ve bought. I have had to stop wearing a lot of my clothes because even those seem to be comprised of moving fibres. Some might say the fibres in the video below are moving because of static electricity, however I find that very hard to believe.

Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other. One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn’t smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn’t want the money — he got it for her as a present. A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students — including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.

‘During the eight years it took James and Karla Murray to complete this project, one third of the stores they featured have closed’

The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the US. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. Thankfully some politicians recognize this, but the federal government seems to be going in the other direction. With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the US government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the US is not safe for internet startups.

A software development student from York who hacked into Facebook has been jailed for eight months. Glenn Mangham, 26, had earlier admitted infiltrating the social networking website between April and May 2011. Mangham, of Cornlands Road, York, had shown search engine Yahoo how it could improve security and said he wanted to do the same for Facebook. Sentencing Mangham, Judge Alistair McCreath said his actions could have been “utterly disastrous” for Facebook. Alison Saunders, from the Crown Prosecution Service, described the case as “the most extensive and flagrant incidence of social media hacking to be brought before British courts”. Prosecutor Sandip Patel rejected Mangham’s claims, saying: “He acted with determination, undoubted ingenuity and it was sophisticated, it was calculating.” Facebook spent $200,000 (£126,400) dealing with Mangham’s crime, which triggered a “concerted, time-consuming and costly investigation” by the FBI and British law enforcement, Mr Patel said.

We hear a lot about zombies these days – in films, in music and even in philosophy – but many are unaware that in 1997 The Lancet published a medical study of three genuine Haitian zombies. The cases studies were reported by British anthropologist Roland Littlewood and Haitian doctor Chavannes Douyon and concerned three individuals identified as zombies after they had apparently passed away. The Haitian explanation for how zombies are created involves the distinction between different elements of the human being – including the body, the gwobon anj (the animating principle) and the ti-bon anj, which represents something akin to agency, awareness, and memory.

After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, all bets were off for live musicians who played in movie theaters. Thanks to synchronized sound, the use of live musicians was unnecessary — and perhaps a larger sin, old-fashioned. In 1930 the American Federation of Musicians formed a new organization called the Music Defense League and launched a scathing ad campaign to fight the advance of this terrible menace known as recorded sound. The evil face of that campaign was the dastardly, maniacal robot. The Music Defense League spent over $500,000, running ads in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. The ads pleaded with the public to demand humans play their music (be it in movie or stage theaters), rather than some cold, unseen machine.

Swiss authorities have confiscated $6 trillion in counterfeit U.S. bonds at the request of Italian prosecutors, authorities in Italy said Friday. Eight people were arrested in Italy and placed under investigation for fraud and other crimes. The bonds, carrying the false date of issue of 1934, had been transported in 2007 from Hong Kong to Zurich, where they were transferred to a Swiss trust, according to prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Potenza. Authorities said that U.S. officials had confirmed the bonds were counterfeit. Prosecutors said the fraud had not been completed, but it appeared that the suspects intended to try to sell the fake bonds to a developing nation, directly or through an intermediary bank.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has once again proven that the only thing Americans need fear, is their own government, with the latest “terror attack” foiled being one entirely of their own design. USA Today reports that a suspect had been arrested by the FBI who was “en route to the U.S. Capitol allegedly to detonate a suicide bomb.” While initial reports portrayed the incident as a narrowly averted terrorist attack, CBS would report that a “high ranking source told CBS News the man was “never a real threat.”” The explosives the would-be bomber carried were provided to him by the FBI during what they described as a “lengthy and extensive operation.” The only contact the suspect had with “Al Qaeda” was with FBI officials posing as associates of the elusive, omnipresent, bearded terror conglomerate. The FBI, much like their MI5 counterparts in England, have a propensity for recruiting likely candidates from mosques they covertly run.

Three U.S. lawmakers urged the Federal Trade Commission to grill Google after it admitted secretly tracking millions of people’s iPhone and Mac Web browsing. Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said they want to know whether Google’s behavior “constitutes a violation” of a privacy settlement Google Inc. and the commission worked out last year. Google pledged at the time not to “misrepresent” its privacy practices to consumers. The fine for violating the agreement is $16,000 for every violation each day. Google and three other advertising companies used special computer code that tricks Apple Inc.’s Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor users’ Internet habits — even though Safari, the most-widely used smartphone Web browser, is designed to block such tracking by default.

Simply put, it is difficult to distinguish a law requiring women to be vaginally penetrated by a long metal object from state-sponsored rape. Worse, discussions among lawmakers leave little doubt that its supporters understood just what they were trying to write into law — they just didn’t care. As an unnamed lawmaker told a fellow Virginia delegate, a woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”

John Muir must be rolling over in his grave. The organization he founded in 1892, the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and largest environmental group, have been in cahoots with the worst of the worst corporations in recent years. They’ve been paid tens of millions of dollars by the fossil fuel industry, tyrannical billionaire mayors and Wall Street in exchange for cleaning (and greening) up their public images. Not only have they acted as a green public relations firm for the bastions of wealth and power, but have also sold out frontline communities most impacted by extractive industry.

Marketing professors Anastasiya Pocheptsova and Rosellina Ferraro, with graduate student, Ajay T. Abraham, conducted a series of experiments on test groups of cellphone users. The findings appear in their working paper, “The Effect of Mobile Phone Use on Prosocial Behavior.” Prosocial behavior, as defined in the study, is action intended to benefit another person or society as a whole. The researchers found that after a short period of cellphone use the subjects were less inclined to volunteer for a community service activity when asked, compared to the control-group counterparts. The cell phone users were also less persistent in solving word problems — even though they knew their answers would translate to a monetary donation to charity. The decreased focus on others held true even when participants were merely asked to draw a picture of their cellphones and think about how they used them.

Poachers have slaughtered at least 200 elephants in the past five weeks in a patch of Africa where they are more dangerously endangered than anywhere else on Earth, wildlife activists said. The money made from selling elephant tusks is fueling misery throughout the continent, the International Fund for Animal Welfare warned. Many elephant calves orphaned by the recent killings have been spotted in Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park, and activists fear the animals may soon die of hunger and thirst. “Their deaths will only compound the impact of the poaching spree on the Cameroon’s threatened elephant populations,” the organization said Thursday in a statement. It is not known how many elephants remain in the West African nation. The latest figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated there were only 1,000 to 5,000 left in 2007.

The internet is broken – we need to start over … Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead. On being asked if we should start again, many – maybe most – immediately argue that the internet is such an integral part of our social and economic fabric that even considering a change in its fundamental structure is inconceivable and rather frivolous. I was one of those. However, recently the evidence suggests that our efforts to secure the internet are becoming less and less effective, and so the idea of a radical alternative suddenly starts to look less laughable.

The existence of these clusters is so little known that most people don’t realize when they’re nearing the epicenter of Fort Meade’s, even when the GPS on their car dashboard suddenly begins giving incorrect directions, trapping the driver in a series of U-turns, because the government is jamming all nearby signals. It’s an experiential trap street—an infinite loop—a deliberate cartographic error introduced into the mapping of the world so as to sow detour and digression. A kind of digital baffling, or recursive geography as state defensive tactic. I’m also curious when we might see this privatized and domesticated—gated communities, for instance, blocking the GPS navigation of their streets in the misguided belief that this will help protect them from future burglary, effectively delisting themselves from public cartographic records. Perhaps the future of neighborhood security lies in the privatized repurposing of advanced signal-jamming technology

✰ Pa. man’s Facebook ‘surfer’ page lured teens

A married father used phony Facebook profiles to pose as two different Florida surfers to solicit sexually graphic messages and photos from seven teenage girls in western Pennsylvania, and two of the girls eventually agreed to meet for sex with the surfers’ middle-aged “friend” — yet another fake persona he used, the state attorney general said Friday. William R. Ainsworth, 53, of Mars, was charged Thursday with 68 counts, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and multiple counts of charges that include attempted unlawful contact with a minor, possession of child pornography and criminal use of a computer.

The address book in smartphones — where some of the user’s most personal data is carried — is free for app developers to take at will, often without the phone owner’s knowledge. Companies that make many of the most popular smartphone apps for Apple and Android devices — Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram among them — routinely gather the information in personal address books on the phone and in some cases store it on their own computers. The practice came under scrutiny Wednesday by members of Congress who saw news reports that taking such data was an “industry best practice.” Apple, which approves all apps that appear in its iTunes store, addressed the controversy on Wednesday after lawmakers sent the company a letter asking how approved apps were allowed to take address book data without users’ permission. Apple’s published rules on apps expressly prohibit that practice.

The stocky man showed up in a basketball uniform for a game at Century High School in North Dakota. Players and coaches assumed he was a fan who had come with another team, so nobody objected when he began to pitch in around the bench. “He helped lay out uniforms, got water. He even gave a couple of kids shoulder massages. Creepy stuff like that,” said Jim Haussler, activities director for the Bismarck Public School District. After the game was over, the man joined the winning team on the court and asked if he could get a piggyback ride. One bemused player gave it to him. “He makes himself appear as if he’s limited or handicapped. I think he plays an empathy card, so to speak,” Haussler said. “We didn’t realize what we were dealing with until several days later.”

Sir Paul has a self-confessed passion for marijuana. He has also been in trouble for drugs more times than bandmate John Lennon ever was, despite Lennon’s reputation as a heavy user. Sir Paul, 69, was introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan, who was stunned to learn he was a ‘pot virgin’ – in the mid-Sixties. After that came heroin, cocaine, LSD and a range of other psychedelics which inspired some of the Beatles’ best known songs. Sir Paul’s rap sheet for drugs is almost as long as his list of hits. He was arrested for cannabis possession in Sweden and at his Scottish farm in 1972.

It says that “a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner has awarded Heather Peters $9,867.” As was discussed last month on All Things Considered, “Peters decided to opt out of a class-action settlement that would have given her as little as $100 and awarded the attorneys $8.5 million. The 46-year-old Los Angeles resident, who is also a lawyer, decided to even the playing field by filing her suit in a small claims court, which doesn’t allow the parties to retain lawyers.” Her case: Peters showed that ads had claimed her Honda Civic hybrid would get 50 miles per gallon. In court, as Eyder previously wrote, “she came armed with hundreds of pictures of her dashboard showing that she got at best 42 miles per gallon and after a software update that number dropped to fewer than 30 miles per gallon.”

A neighborly dispute over dog poop turned deadly in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. It happened just after 4 p.m. Tuesday on the 6500 block of Torresdale Avenue. Tyrirk Harris, 27, is accused of killing his 47-year-old neighbor Franklin Manuel Santana, according to Philadelphia Police. Cops say Santana walked a couple doors down Torresdale to confront Harris over his dogs. “A German Shepherd and a Chihuahua — these dogs were running free,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small. “There were dog feces on several of the neighbor’s yards. That’s what led to this particular confrontation.” Police say Harris then pulled out a 9-mm handgun and shot his neighbor several times, striking Santana in his face and chest.

Computer hackers known as Anonymous leaked information obtained by hacking into private intelligence firm Stratfor’s computer network. The documents – what Anonymous is calling a teaser – suggest that from at least October to November 2011 Stratfor worked with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement. The document contains emails in which Stratfor employees discuss Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance. Stratfor “Watch Officer” Marc Lanthemann writes about receiving information on Occupy Austin and DGR from a “Texas DPS agent.” The Texas Department of Public Safety is a statewide law enforcement agency that includes an Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.

“To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it’s justice; that is it’s morality.” – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 19th century French philosopher

David Choe has received a world wind of media attention after the story broke that he is holding $200 million worth of Facebook stock after painting their offices in 2005. Barbara Walters recently met up with Choe for an interview, and to hit the streets. Check out the hilarious video.

Not only were the smaller farms concerned over how the manufactured seeds had been carried by wind and creature alike onto their own plantations, but the biggest problem perhaps was that Monsanto was filing lawsuits themselves against farmers. Monsanto went after hundreds of farmers for infringing on their patented seed after audits revealed that their farms had contained their product — as a result of routine pollination by animals and acts of nature. Unable to afford a proper defense, competing small farms have been bought out by the company in droves. As a result, Monsanto saw their profits increase by the hundreds of millions over the last few years as a result. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto tackled 144 organic farms with lawsuits and investigated roughly 500 plantations annually during that span with a so-called “seed police.”

The average American uses enough water each year to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and global agriculture consumes a whopping 92% of all fresh water used annually. Those are the conclusions of the most comprehensive analysis to date of global water use, which also finds that one-fifth of humankind’s water consumption flows across international borders as “virtual water”—the water needed to produce a commodity, such as meat or electronics, if the ultimate consumers were to make it themselves rather than outsource its growth or manufacture.

When Ellen Terrell and her husband, Charlie, flew out of DFW Airport several months ago, Terrell says she was surprised by a question a female TSA agent asked her. “She says to me, ‘Do you play tennis?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘You just have such a cute figure.’” Terrell says she walked into the body scanner which creates an image that a TSA agent in another room reviews. Terrell says she tried to leave, but the female agent stopped her. “She says, ‘Wait, we didn’t get it,’” recalls Terrell, who claims the TSA agent sent her back a second time and even a third. But that wasn’t good enough. After the third time, Terrell says even the agent seemed frustrated with her co-workers in the other room. “She’s talking into her microphone and she says, ‘Guys, it is not blurry, I’m letting her go. Come on out.’” When TSA agents do a pat down on a traveler, only female agents are allowed to touch female passengers. But the TSA allows male agents to view the images of female passengers.

Gonorrhea, one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States, is increasingly showing resistance to one of the last known effective antibiotic treatments, leading researchers from the Centers for Disease Control to “sound the alarm” about potentially untreatable forms of the disease. “During the past three years, the wily gonococcus has become less susceptible to our last line of antimicrobial defense, threatening our ability to cure gonorrhea,” Gail Bolan, director of the CDC’s sexually transmitted disease prevention program, wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine last week.

Arthur C. Clarke once famously quipped that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So perhaps it was inevitable that the Pentagon’s extreme technology arm would eventually start acting like magicians — and try to create illusions on the front lines. In its new budget, unveiled on Monday, Darpa introduced a new $4 million investigation into technologies that will “manage the adversary’s sensory perception” in order to “confuse, delay, inhibit, or misdirect [his] actions.” Darpa calls the project “Battlefield Illusion.” Of course. “The current operational art of human-sensory battlefield deception is largely an ad-hoc practice,” the agency sighs as it lays out the project’s goals. But if researchers can better understand “how humans use their brains to process sensory inputs,” the military should be able to develop “auditory and visual” hallucinations that will “provide tactical advantage for our forces.”

Do devastating hurricanes need help from affirmative action? A member of Congress apparently thinks so, and is demanding the storms be given names that sound “black.” The congressional newspaper the Hill reported this week that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, feels that the current names are too “lily white,” and is seeking to have better representation for names reflecting African-Americans and other ethnic groups. “All racial groups should be represented,” Lee said, according to the Hill. She hoped federal weather officials “would try to be inclusive of African-American names.” A sampling of popular names that could be used include Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn, according to the paper.

Roughly 200 million people worldwide use illicit drugs such as marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine and opioids each year, according to a new study. The figure represents about one in 20 people between the ages of 15 and 64. Using a review of published studies, Australian researchers estimated that as many as 203 million people use marijuana, 56 million people use amphetamines including meth, 21 million people use cocaine and 21 million people use opioids like heroin. The use of all four drug classes was highest in developed countries. …The 200 million number does not include people who use ecstasy, hallucinogenic drugs, inhalants, benzodiazepines or anabolic steroids — just one reason it’s likely a vast underestimate of illicit drug use, according to lead author Louisa Degenhardt of the Sydney-based National Drug and Alcohol Research Center.

He said PHS, which runs InSite, has distributed monthly highs of 20,000 pipes through its own needle and pipe distribution program. The 3,000 pipes PHS received from VCH in December were exhausted in three days. “At the beginning of the study, we expressed our concerns that (the pipe supply) is a tiny number … but we were told the number’s staying the same,” Townsend said. “To meet the demand we would need around 1,000 per day.”

During a town hall-style appearance in Concord, the former House Speaker said he had no interest in exploring drug decriminalization, arguing that such efforts haven’t worked in Europe. Contra Gingrich, however, Portugal has had some success with decriminalization initiatives. Pushed a bit later on the incarceration rate related to petty drug crimes, Gingrich responded, “I think the best thing is to get young people not to do drugs and then you won’t be dealing with criminals that you just described.” A third resident of the “live free or die” state argued that the founding fathers had been far more lenient about marijuana than the current political class. “I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques with dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government,” Gingrich replied.

We hope he drank the scotch before adding the H! On New Year’s Eve customs officials stopped Miami man Wilfer Bohorquez Rojo, 53, as he allegedly tried to smuggle 25 pounds of heroin from Medillin, Colombia, to Newark Airport. At first authorities just thought he had smuggled the drugs in “packages of plastic flags and between glued photographs” but further inspection found he’d filled four Chivas Royal Salute scotch bottles with “packages of a substance that also tested positive for heroin, according to the agency.” After the discovery of the drugs—estimated by authorities to be worth at least $700,000—Rojo was turned over to authorities and now faces federal narcotics smuggling charges.

A long-simmering court battle over a trove of OxyContin documents has finally won the attention of Purdue Pharma. The drugmaker is belatedly seeking to intervene in a 2008 lawsuit in a Massachusetts state court, where an attempt is being made to force the state attorney general to release documents that were used to prosecute Purdue and three current and former execs several years ago. At issue are countless documents that were compiled by the US Department of Justice, which charged Purdue and the execs with misbranding – they facilitated improper use of the drug and misled patients, regulators and doctors about addictive risks. All totaled, $634 million in fines were paid, and the execs were barred from doing business with federal healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid

“This war on drugs has been a detriment to personal liberty and it’s been a real abuse of liberty,” Paul said. “Our prisons are full with people who have used drugs who should be treated as patients — and they’re non-violent. Someday we’re gonna awake and find out that the prohibition we are following right now with drugs is no more successful, maybe a lot less successful, than the prohibition of alcohol was in the ’20s.”

Darren Jones wants to check himself into rehab – to cure a bizarre addiction to Diet Cola. Darren, 38, knocks back 42 litres of the drink every week. Now the 35 stone father of two is vowing to get treatment for his £100 a week habit to get fit again and save his relationship with 33-year old mother of two Paula Mullen. Darren, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, said: “I believe what I have is an actual addiction and I start to worry if I’m getting near the end of the bottle. “If I can’t get in touch with Paula to get me some more I start to panic – it’s like a drug or alcohol addiction. “I called up Diet Coke to ask them if it’s addictive and what I should do and she recommended putting water in it to dilute it, but it would taste horrid and I don’t think it would help. “We joke that I should get one of those hats with bottles either side of my head and straws straight into my mouth so I can drink it all the time. It’s like gold, it’s my fuel.”

Obama also argues that he opposes Iran’s nukes because of proliferation in the region. At which point one must loudly cough “Ahem.” Only one country in the region has illegally, in defiance of internatinal law and the NPT and US policy, has nuclear weapons and it’s Israel, not any Arab state. More absurdly, the US government has a formal policy of never acknowledging this fact. At one point in the not-so-distant past, the US government was committed to the view that Iraq had nukes but Israel didn’t. When will the US evolve a sane policy in the Middle East? One that advances our interests, avoids a catastrophic global religious war, and bases it judgment on history and statecraft rather than religion and a US-Israel alliance that, since the end of the Cold War, has become increasingly unhealthy to both parties? Less Kennedy, more Eisenhower, please.

After a lengthy legal battle between a black South Carolina church and members of the Ku Klux Klan, a judge has ruled that the church owns a building where KKK robes and T-shirts are sold. A circuit judge ruled last month that New Beginnings Baptist Church is the rightful owner of the building that houses the Redneck Shop, which operates a so-called Klan museum and sells Klan robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. The judge ordered the shop’s proprietor to pay the church’s legal bills of more than $3,300.

A man in the U.S. is suing Pepsi Co. over a mouse allegedly found in a can of Mountain Dew, a claim the company rejects by saying the acid in the beverage would disintegrate the animal’s body. However, that reasoning doesn’t hold water with Canadian food experts. “There would not be enough acid in the matrix of the can to actually start causing those physical changes to the mouse,” says Massimo Marcone, an associate professor of food science at the University of Guelph. “The mouse would start to spoil; there would not be enough acid to preserve the mouse. It would start to smell bad. But to say that the mouse would actually dissolve in about 300 millilitres of soft drink, it’s pretty hard.”

Although he died when he was only 53 years old, Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) published 44 novels and 121 short stories during his lifetime and solidified his position as arguably the most literary of science fiction writers. His novel Ubik appears on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels, and Dick is the only science fiction writer to get honored in the prestigious Library of America series, a kind of pantheon of American literature. If you’re not intimately familiar with his novels, then you assuredly know major films based on Dick’s work – Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report. Today, we bring you another way to get acquainted with his writing. We’re presenting a selection of Dick’s stories available for free on the web. Below we have culled together 11 short stories from our collection of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books.

The new issue of Time magazine promises on its cover “Essential Info for the Year Ahead.” One apparently essential report: U.S. drones are awesome. The report–written by Mark Thompson, available to subscribers only explains that a “hot military trend” this way: Today’s generals and admirals want weapons that are smaller, remote-controlled and bristling with intelligence. In short, more drones that can tightly target terrorists, deliver larger payloads and are some of the best spies the U.S. has ever produced, even if they occasionally get captured in Iran or crash on landing at secret bases. And also, you know, kill innocent civilians.

Alejandro Jodorowsky – the legendary cult filmmaker behind Santa Sangre, El Topo and The Holy Mountain – needs your help. After years trying to raise funding for big new projects King Shot and Son Of El Topo, Jodorowsky is moving on to something more personal: Danza De La Realidad, an autobiographical picture based on his own childhood and teenaged years. Having had no luck with conventional film financing methods in recent years, Jodorowsky is taking this one to the streets and trying the crowd funding method. Put a hundred dollars into the film and you’ll receive a special cut of the finished movie on DVD.

The Sea Shepherd crew has intercepted the Japanese whaling fleet on Christmas Day, a thousand miles north of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Sea Shepherd ship, Steve Irwin, deployed a drone to successfully locate and photograph the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru on December 24th. Once the pursuit began, three Japanese harpoon/security ships moved in on the Steve Irwin to shield the Nisshin Maru to allow it to escape. This time however the Japanese tactic of tailing the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker will not work because the drones, one on the Steve Irwin and the other on the Bob Barker, can track and follow the Nisshin Maru and can relay the positions back to the Sea Shepherd ships. “We can cover hundreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valuable assets for this campaign,” said Captain Paul Watson on board the Steve Irwin.

Nightmarish ‘supersoldier’ ants with huge heads and jaws have been created by activating ancient genes. Scientists believe the monster ants may be a genetic throwback to an ancestor that lived millions of years ago. Scientists say they can create the supersoldiers at will by dabbing normal ant larvae with a special hormone – the larvae then develop into supersoldiers rather than normal soldier or worker ants.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri sued a local public library on Tuesday for allegedly blocking websites related to Wicca, a modern pagan religion. Anaka Hunter of Salem, Mo., said she tried to access websites about Wicca, Native American religions and astrology for her own research, but the library’s filtering software blocked the sites. According to the ACLU, the software labeled the sites as “occult” and “criminal.”

I recently tracked down the pdf’s for nearly all of the issues of the now-deceased counterculture online zine Grey Lodge Occult Review. The site was taken down due to “legal threats and religious hackers”. To see the table of contents for the issues visit the Wayback Machine here. Along with the rabbit hole that is Deoxy, this was one of my formative sanctuaries for all things mindfuckery.

In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits.

Shanxi province Taiyuan city Wanbailin district Yingze West Street, an excavator operates on the rooftop of the Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel, causing surrounding city residents both surprise and concern.

The US Air Force’s second mysterious mini-space shuttle, the X-37B, could be spying on China’s space laboratory and the first piece of its space station, Tiangong-1. Amateur space trackers told the British Interplanetary Society publication Spaceflight that the black-funded spaceplane seemed to be orbiting the Earth in tandem with Tiangong_1, or the Heavenly Palace, leading the magazine to speculate that its unknown mission is to spy on it. “Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China’s nascent space station,” Spaceflight editor Dr David Baker told the BBC.

Incredibly, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office is offering Occupy L.A. protesters arrested in recent weeks the opportunity to pay $355 for private free speech classes to avoid their court dates. As reported in the Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won’t press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates. … Carter said the free-speech class will save the city money and teach protesters the nuances of the law. “The 1st Amendment is not absolute,” he said, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled government can regulate when, where and how free speech can be exercised. As a civil rights attorney working with some of the approximately 350 protesters who have been arrested in recent weeks noted, the offer is nothing short of “patronizing.”

No brand names are mentioned on the show, but many have speculated that the drink is Mountain Dew, a caffeinated soft drink. Others believe it even contains alcohol. Mrs Holler is filmed instructing Alana to take ‘two big gulps’ from an unlabelled drinks bottle. Within seconds the change is apparent. ‘A lot of pageant moms and people know what the special juice is – everybody has their different concoctions. Special juice is to help energise her’ The young pageant contestant starts rapidly swinging her arms over her head and spinning around on the floor, exclaiming: ‘My go-go juice is kicking in right now!’ After her drink fix, Alana takes to the stage in a plaid shirt displaying inches of stomach to perform a routine, inspired by sex symbol Daisy Duke. Describing how the drink makes her feel, she says smiling: ‘Go-go juice makes me laughy, and play-ey, and makes me feel like I want to pull my mommy’s hair.’

Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton is hoping to become the first person to use a bike to reach the South Pole. She is attempting to travel 500 miles (805km) across Antarctica and will cycle for large parts of it, as well as snowkiting and walking. She hopes to complete the trek for Sport Relief in 20 days. At this time of year, the average temperature in Antarctica is -25C, but can drop to -50C. Severe coastal winds come from cold air flowing down off the interior ice sheet. Wind speeds can reach up to 125mph (201km/h) and average about 80mph. In addition, she will be dragging 12.9st (82kg) of equipment and supplies behind her on a sledge. It’s no average ride and she is not using your average bike. The specially-built Hanebrink “ice bike” took designers in Los Angeles three months to finish. Dan Hanebrink and Kane Fortune have been building all-terrain hybrid bikes that can be used in all environments for many years.

Here is an actual Rick Santorum quote: “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Some plastic surgeons are reporting an increase in younger clients, specifically those who are ready to undo a generational fashion statement that has left a lot of self-conscious people with a lot of sagging earlobe. Dr. David Kahn, who performed Tidwell’s surgery, was blunt in his assessment of his client’s condition. “It was unsightly, a distortion that needed to be overcome.”

They may look like any other baby monkeys, but these two are scientific breakthroughs. Roku and Hex are the world’s first chimeric monkeys – created with genetic material from six ‘parents’. But their birth has caused an ethical storm, with critics accusing scientists of disregarding the welfare of the animals.

MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC have dedicated no time to covering the Stop Online Piracy Act in their evening newscasts since Oct. 1, according to a report by Ben Dimiero of Media Matters For America. CNN, meanwhile, has dedicated a single evening news segment to the issue. All of the companies covered in the report have either publicly supported SOPA or have parent companies that have done so. Dimiero based his report on Lexis-Nexis searches which includes transcripts of nighttime newscasts. Comcast/NBCUniversal (which owns MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), Time Warner (CNN) and Disney (ABC) are all listed as supporters of the bill. ABC and CBS are also listed as separate supporters of the bill.

Japan is planning a futuristic farm where robots do the lifting in an experimental project on land swamped by the March tsunami. Under an agriculture ministry plan, unmanned tractors will work fields where pesticides will have been replaced by LEDs keeping rice, wheat, soybeans, fruit and vegetables safe until robots can put them in boxes. Carbon dioxide produced by machinery working on the up to 250-hectare site will be channeled back to crops to boost their growth and reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers, the Nikkei newspaper said this week. The agricultural ministry will begin on-site research later this year with a plan to spend around 4 billion yen over the next six years, a ministry official said. Land in Miyagi Prefecture, some 300 kilometers north of Tokyo, which was flooded by seawater on March 11, has been earmarked for the so-called “Dream Project.”

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday he is willing to go before the NAACP and urge blacks to demand paychecks, not food stamps. Gingrich told a town hall meeting at a senior center in Plymouth, N.H., that if the NAACP invites him to its annual convention this year, he’d go there and talk about “why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” He also said he’d pitch a new Social Security program aimed at helping young people, particularly African-American males, who he said get the smallest return on Social Security.

The researchers created what they call a time lens, which can manipulate and focus signals in time, analogous to the way a glass lens focuses light in space. They use a technique called four-wave mixing, in which two beams of light, a “signal” and a “pump,” are sent together through an optical fiber. The two beams interact and change the wavelength of the signal. To begin creating a time gap, the researchers first bump the wavelength of the signal up, then by flipping the wavelength of the pump beam, bump it down.

A pro skateboarder with a passion for God and psychedelic drugs was arrested Thursday after he went on a drug-fueled rampage inside a Midtown hotel wearing only his birthday suit, cops said. Jereme Rogers, 26, was high on angel dust when he ran naked out of his room at the Afinia Shelburne hotel and started tearing down framed pictures lining an 11th floor hallway, sources said. “It was a rampage,” said a witness who declined to give her name. “He was screaming. We didn’t even know what he was doing. He was incoherent and belligerent.” Rogers, a heavily-tattooed Californian who has appeared in several X Games and says his skills come from God, was taken to Bellevue Hospital. He was charged with criminal mischief and unlawful possession of marijuana, cops said.

✖ DHS Training excercise startles locals

With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building. “I thought someone was upset about not getting there check,” said Laura Kelly, who took a friend to the office on Tuesday. According to one Homeland official in the Washington, D.C. office, Operation Shield. is an effort that uses routine, unannounced visits by FPS inspectors to test the effectiveness of contract guards, or protective security officers — “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”

A wild panda is caught on surveillance camera eating a dead gnu in south-west China. An analyst says the bamboo-loving animals were predators millions of years ago. Although classified as carnivores, giant pandas mainly live on bamboo, but eat other foods including honey, eggs, fish, oranges and bananas when they are available

A 9,500-year-old bracelet has been analysed using the very latest computers – and the results show that it is so intricate even today’s craftsmen would struggle to improve it. Researchers from the Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes in Istanbul and Laboratoire de Tribologie et de Dynamiques des Systèmes studied the bracelet’s surface and its micro-topographic features revealing the astounding technical expertise of the maker. The bracelet is obsidian – which means it’s made from volcanic glass – and the researchers analysis of it sheds new light on Neolithic societies, which remain highly mysterious.

For the first time in nearly a century, automobile accidents are no longer the nation’s leading cause of accidental deaths, according to a major report released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The new number one killer is drugs—not smack, crystal meth or any other stepped-on menace sold in urban alleyways or trailer parks, but bright, shiny pills prescribed by doctors, approved by the government, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and sold to the consumer as “medicine.” Yet of the billions of legit pills Americans pop every year for medical conditions serious and otherwise, the vast majority of lives are claimed by only a select few classes—painkillers, sedatives and stimulants—that all share a common characteristic: they promote abuse, dependence and addiction.

A Spanish model’s plan to smuggle cocaine into Italy concealed in her prosthetic breasts and buttocks backfired Wednesday when her extra curvy figure drew the wrong kind of attention from ogling customs officials. The 33 year old deliberately wore tight-fitting clothes when she arrived on a flight at Rome’s Fiumicino airport from Sao Paulo in Brazil, hoping to throw the full-blooded Italian security staff off the scent. Unfortunately her extra-large bosom and derriere managed to attract the glances of airport customs agents, Italian news agency ANSA reported, but not for the reasons she had hoped. She also flubbed her answers to questions about the reasons for her trip. Two female investigators conducted a strip search and found the white powder stashed inside her unusual underwear. She was arrested for attempting to smuggle around 5.5 pounds of cocaine.

There is, however, a broad network of people who buy medications containing pseudoephedrine and sell it to the cooks, a practice called smurfing, Whitney says. In the past three years or so, young heroin users have begun smurfing to make money so they can buy heroin. A box of Sudafed that costs $8 or $9, he says, can be sold to meth cooks for $100, which is enough for 10 small heroin doses. Whitney expects almost 30 heroin overdose deaths this year in this county of 219,000. Law enforcement officials began tracking another trend in 2007 that made busting meth cooks even more difficult: a “one pot” method. The drug is mixed in a 2-liter soda bottle, often in moving cars. When the process is complete, the leftover toxic materials are tossed out the car window.

We know that air pollution in the form of traffic and factory fumes can pose a health risk ě°˝€“ but airborne traces of illegal drugs could do too, say researchers. Scientists at the Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research in Rome found traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air around dozens of sites in Italy. They also discovered statistical correlations between cocaine levels and certain types of cancer ě°˝€“ and between cannabis levels and mental disorders.

The Blue Ridge school board will consider implementing random drug testing as a way to keep students from making “unhealthy choices.” A policy could be adopted as soon as Jan. 18. The board meets at 6 Wednesday night to discuss proposed building construction; the regular meeting follows at 7 at the high school library, 411 N. John St. The drug test option arose after discussion about use and misuse of legal and illegal drugs in the area. “The behaviors were alarming enough, it was clear that some students were making unhealthy choices, and it had to be addressed,” said Superintendent Susan Wilson. The goal is to prevent drug use; give students an “out” when friends try to get them to use substances; and give parents the information needed to seek treatment for their child if they test positive, she said.

Deputies returned two pounds of seized cannabis to a California dispensary on Friday after a court ruled that the marijuana had been improperly confiscated. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department confiscated two pounds of marijuana from Common Roots Collective during a shakedown, I mean “inspection, on December 1. But the dispensary’s lawyer argued that the deputies violated federal law, since authorities, including code enforcement officers, had entered the property on an inspection order and not a search warrant, reports CBS 13.

✪ Disgraced Bishop Lahey apologizes for his Internet porn addiction

Earlier in the day, prosecutor David Elhadad laid out in lurid detail some of what was depicted in the images, videos and stories seized by police. Elhadad said Catholic imagery was intertwined with “disgusting” sado-masochistic scenes, including one image of a male in “monk’s garb” using a paddle to spank a young boy. Elhadad argued Lahey’s position in the Catholic Church placed him in a position of trust. “He is and was an individual in a position of trust over many years hiding his shameful sexual depravity and predilection in taking joy in the torture and rape of children,” said Elhadad.

Breathable caffeine dispensed from canisters that fit in jean pockets and are allowed in carry-on luggage is a ‘club drug’ that may be dangerous to teenagers, a New York senator said. Democrat Charles Schumer wrote Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg today asking her to review the safety and legality of the AeroShot Pure Energy caffeine inhaler, a yellow and gray canister of caffeine powder and B vitamins resembling a tube of lipstick. The inhaler is set to hit store shelves in New York and Boston next month 2 Comments Weigh InCorrections? inShare AeroShot will be sold over the counter with no age restrictions and is touted for its convenience and zero calories. If taken with alcohol, the mixture may have effects similar to caffeinated alcohol drinks tied to hospitalizations in the past, Schumer said. Doctors say it may carry neurological and cardiovascular risks.

Ardente was suspended from her job at a Quebec City-area high school in March after a student spotted her in a porn video on the Internet. While she didn’t deal with students in her job, the spicy contents of her videos turned her into quite the celebrity among them. School board officials fired Ardente after they were unable to reach agreement on her transfer to another job. They acknowledged Ardente hadn’t done anything illegal but said her cinematic activities don’t correspond with the values being taught at the school. Ardente had initially offered to put an end to her pornography career but said the board also wanted to impose working conditions that she felt would be too restrictive. After filing a grievance she eventually reached an out-of-court settlement with her employer.

“The manager said he was told people were hollering and arguing in another room,” Royals said. “When Hardiman made contact with the occupants of the room, he noticed the toilet kept running. When he went to check, he found a 20-ounce Coke bottle and a tin containing marijuana inside the tank, which caused it to keep running.”

If you thought buying an island was a costly affair, look no further than this new shirt, which costs twice as much as an island in Panama. From a distance, the five-million-rupee shirt ($97,500) looks fairly modest, but a closer look reveals that its buttons are diamonds set on gold.

Senior Class Fabricates Existence of Korean “Artist,” Cons Stuart Collection into Hanging House Off Edge of Seven-Story Building Stuart Collection Curator Attempts to Save Face: “Actually, joke’s on them: this prank is so genius that it ascends to the level of art. We’re proud to feature it in our collection.”

One four-hour tour costs $30 and takes tourists to Escobar’s grave, the house where he was shot dead by police and a home in the hills where he lived before his death. There the tourists meet Roberto Escobar, Pablo’s slight and balding older brother. The tours pose a conundrum for Colombia and Medellín, which have worked hard to reduce violence and shed their image as a land of gun-wielding cocaine smugglers. Tourism to Colombia is up 54% to nearly two million annual visitors compared to 2006, the government says. The country’s current tourism campaign says the only “danger” in visiting is falling in love with the country and not wanting to leave. “We knew we couldn’t just outlaw the tours,” says Medellín’s deputy secretary of tourism, Madeleine Torres. “But we feared the tours would promote the very thing we’re trying to move away from the connection people so often make between Colombia and cocaine.”

The French village of Allouville-Bellefosse is famous for the Chêne Chapelle (Oak Chapel), which is literally a chapel built into an oak tree. The amazing architecture consists of a wooden staircase spiraling around the ancient tree, leading up to a couple of chambers. These rooms have always been used as places of worship, by the village locals. The age of the tree has been a subject of debate, but everyone agrees that it is the oldest tree in France, without a doubt. The tree is known to have been growing as far back as the thirteenth century, during the rule of Louis IX, when France was a truly centralized kingdom. It is also known to have survived the Hundred Years War against the English, the Black Death, the Reformation, and Napoleon’s rule. Local folklore dates it a 1,000 years old, when it is said that the acorn took root. However, tree experts say it could only be around 800 years old, which means the thirteenth century saw it’s origins.

But with devil’s weed, you really are so removed from reality, that the possibility of doing yourself a fatal mischief is all too real. Here’s what the US Department of Agriculture says: “Datura intoxication typically produces a complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy (delirium, as contrasted to hallucination); hyperthermia; tachycardia (increased heart-rate); bizarre, and possibly violent behavior; and severe mydriasis (pupil dilation) with resultant painful photophobia that can last several days.” It has high enough levels of toxicity that it can also kill you if you’re not careful about the dosage.

Timothy Leary, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Dodge City, Mystic Arts World, and a Laguna Beach history some would prefer to forget.

The Meridian communications satellite failed to reach orbit yesterday due to a failure with its Soyuz rocket, in the latest setback for a Russian space program which has now lost over half a dozen satellites in the past year. Its fragments crashed into the Novosibirsk region of central Siberia and were found in the Ordynsk district around 100km south of the regional capital Novosibirsk. “A sphere was found, around 50cm in diameter, which crashed into the roof of a house in the village of Vagaitsevo” in the Ordynsk district, an official in the local security services told the Interfax news agency. In an extraordinary irony, the official said that the house was located on Cosmonaut Street, named after the heroic spacemen of the Soviet and Russian space program.

In Amazonian Peru, the author traces the source of the powerful Stone Age botanical hallucinogen ayahuasca. He meets crying shamans, drunken shamans, and even a gringo shaman, and learns about the epic quest it inspired in one devotee. Then he takes the ultimate step: drinking it himself. Whoa. . .

The United States adding Iran to the list of countries likely to be responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks is “beyond belief,” an analyst tells Press TV. His comments come as a New York judge has signed a default judgment excluding Saudi Arabia from the list of defendants, but finding Iran, along with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, liable in the Sept. 11, 2001 incident. “The official story of 9/11 is taking on a life of its own, how Judge George Daniels could find this in the court is beyond belief, and it indicates that the rule of law is breaking down even further in the United States,” said Joshua Blakeney of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Veterans Today.

Representatives from the global intelligence company Stratfor awoke to find a lump of coal in their stockings this morning …or, more specifically, their clients’ credit card information strewn across the Web. It’s the latest cyber-attack being claimed by members of the hacktivist group Anonymous, one that allegedly resulted in the publishing of nearly 4,000 credit card numbers, site passwords, and home addresses for some of the (formerly) confidential clients of the U.S.-based security firm. The goal? The attackers indicated they were planning to use the stolen credit card information (allegedly stored as unencrypted text) to amass a sum of one million dollars that could then be given to various charities for the holiday season. Images posted alongside the hack’s alleged Pastebin-based press release show that some of these charity donations are already underway.

It was supposed to be a “slice of Americana and of childhood dreams,” says U.S. Army Specialist Mark Grapin, who lives in Fairfax County, Virginia. He’s talking about the treehouse he built for his two sons after returning from his latest tour of duty in Iraq. What Grapin didn’t expect was that Fairfax County’s zoning board would demand he tear down the treehouse after an anonymous complaint, thus launching the family into an eight-month legal battle. Grapin went to the local media for help and public outcry turned into an online petition. A neighbor donated trees to cover the treehouse, and the family even received a pro bono lawyer to help win over board members. Just days before the treehouse was to be torn down, Grapin was able to convince the board to let him keep it on the condition it be removed after five years. Plenty of time, he says, for his sons to enjoy it.

A series of security incidents had created an avalanche of bad press, which in turn undermined public confidence in the currency. Its value fell by more than 90 percent against the dollar. We thought Bitcoin’s value would continue to collapse, but so far that hasn’t happened. Instead, after hitting a low of $2, it rose back above $3 in early December, and on Monday it rose above $4 for the first time in two months. It’s impossible to predict where the currency will go next, but at a minimum it looks like the currency will still be around in 2012. This presents a bit of a puzzle for Bitcoin skeptics. The original run-up in prices could easily be explained as a speculative bubble, and the subsequent decline as the popping of that bubble. But if that were the whole story, then the value of Bitcoins should have continued to decline as more and more people lost confidence in the currency. That hasn’t been happening.

The patois Bible represents a bold new attempt to standardise the language, with the historically oral tongue written down in a new phonetic form. For example the passage relating the angel’s visit to Mary reads: “Di ienjel go tu Mieri an se tu ar se, ‘Mieri, mi av nyuuz we a go mek yu wel api. Gad riili riili bles yu an im a waak wid yu all di taim.”

“Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity….These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.”

✪ HSBC: The World’s Dirtiest Bank

In late July, First Niagara Financial Group announced that it would buy 195 retail bank branches in New York and Connecticut from HSBC for around $1 billion. [1] HSBC acquired the branches when it bought the spooky Marine Midland in 1980. According to Global Finance, the UK-headquartered HSBC Holdings is the world’s 3rd largest bank with $2.36 trillion in assets. [2] Formerly known as Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation, HSBC has served as the world’s #1 drug money laundry since its inception as a repository for British Crown opium proceeds accrued during the Chinese Opium Wars. During the Vietnam War HSBC laundered CIA heroin proceeds.

There is something truly disturbing about a society that seeks to control the behavior of schoolchildren through fear and violence, a tactic that harkens back to an era of paddle-bruised behinds and ruler-slapped wrists. Yet, some American school districts are pushing the boundaries of corporal punishment even further with the use of Tasers against unruly schoolchildren. The deployment of Tasers against “problem” students coincides with the introduction of police officers on school campuses, also known as School Resource Officers (SROs). According to the Los Angeles Times, as of 2009, the number of SROs carrying Tasers was well over 4,000.

Domain registrar Go Daddy lost over 21,000 domains yesterday. It could be a coincidence–or it could be the result of the company’s p.r. debacle over its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Finnish authorities have confirmed the seizure of 69 Patriot missiles manufactured by Raytheon Corporation today. During a routine search of the MS Thor Liberty, a ship flagged by the Isle of Man, at the Finnish port of Kotka, authorities found 69 Patriot missiles of a type capable of intercepting ICBMs, the most modern available and America’s most sensitive military technology.?log=out

Dany Lacerte is one example. The young Quebec City father started a Facebook page to track and expose suspected online predators. He joined a popular online meeting site and created a fake profile of a 13-year-old girl. He said he catches about five men a day and tries to film them over an Internet video-chat site. However, he didn’t blur the faces of the men he allegedly caught before posting videos of them online. He has been threatened with a lawsuit from one of the men he filmed. Earlier this year, a group of teens dressed as superheroes are gaining notoriety for a series of videos they posted in which they confront alleged pedophiles in Chilliwack, B.C. In a spin-off of Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator, the boys pose as teen girls in chats with men looking for sex, then arranged to meet the men at fast-food restaurants in the city.

For me, the charm of Facebook ended when my list of favorite books disappeared. The astonishing thing about the original lists of favorite things on Facebook was that you could instantly see anyone else in the Facebook land who was interested in anything on your own list. It was so surprising to discover this. Really popular things would show tens of thousands of devotees, but so many times, there would be just ten, or 100, or even two. Once in a while it would be a friend, or a friend of a friend, who shared a hitherto unknown and unsuspected taste for The Lost Scrapbook or the solo works of Yukihiro Takahashi. A magical thing. I friended a couple of complete strangers just because they were fellow Thurber freaks. These connections were random, unmonetized, unmediated. We can still do this on the Internet now-on Twitter, say, the new home of random and improbable connections-but not on Facebook. Not any more.

Occupy Wall Street may still be working to shake the notion it represents a passing outburst of rage, but some establishment institutions have already decided the movement’s artifacts are worthy of historic preservation. More than a half-dozen major museums and organizations from the Smithsonian Institution to the New-York Historical Society have been avidly collecting materials produced by the Occupy movement. Staffers have been sent to occupied parks to rummage for buttons, signs, posters and documents. Websites and tweets have been archived for digital eternity. And museums have approached individual protesters directly to obtain posters and other ephemera. The Museum of the City of New York is planning an exhibition on Occupy for next month. “Occupy is sexy,” said Ben Alexander, who is head of special collections and archives at Queens College in New York, which has been collecting Occupy materials. “It sounds hip. A lot of people want to be associated with it.” Thanks Jasmine

✪ The Apple Collection, 1986/87 – Catalog of Weird Apple Products

Why humans (and most primates, some bats, and elephant shrews) menstruate is a question that many have attempted to answer in some way… some explanations more convincing than others. The downsides to menstruation (the process of shedding the endometrium of the uterus that was built up in anticipation of the possibility of the implantation of a fertilized egg); “throwing away a substantial amount of blood and tissue,” “leaving a blood trail or filling a delicate orifice with dying tissue” in a “world full of predators and disease,” not to mention the menstrual cycle’s “uncomfortable, awkward, and sometimes debilitating” symptoms; seem to necessitate a strong explanation for the evolution of the feature. Not only is it hard to find a theory that explains why just a few mammals find it more evolutionarily advantageous to menstruate, it’s difficult to come up with a theory that explains why all those other mammals haven’t found it more efficient as well.

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights in 2011 and discussing where we are in the fight for a free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy. The government has been using its secrecy system in absurd ways for decades, but 2011 was particularly egregious. Here are a few examples

From Fox 13 in Tampa comes the horrifying story of Nick Christie, a 62-year-old Ohio man who was detained by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for being publicly intoxicated. While Christie’s wife asked that he be taken to the hospital, Lee County cops decided instead to strip Christie naked, tie him to a chair, cover his face, and then pepper spray him repeatedly, until he died

The disbelief over unruly crowds fighting and being pepper sprayed over Air Jordan Concords turned to mourning when it was reported on social media and blogs that a young man, 18-year-old Tyreek Amir Jacobs, had been killed for the coveted shoes. As the rumors put it, Jacobs was a teen from Washington DC and killed in Maryland, possibly at the Wheaton Mall. A photo of him was passed around, inscribed with his date of birth and date of death. But calls to police revealed there had been no killings under such circumstances in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area. “Nothing like that has happened here, and I hope we would know,” said one Montgomery County police official. While media outlets in the district reported on disturbances around the area, none ended fatally. Still, as of this writing, some 12,000 people were participating in no less than eight Facebook groups about Jacobs’ killing.

✪ Unprovoked attacks at heart of ‘Knockout King’

Matthew Quain still struggles to piece together what happened after a trip to the grocery store nearly turned deadly. He remembers a group of loitering young people, a dimly lit street – then nothing. The next thing he knew he was waking up with blood pouring out of his head. The 51-year-old pizza kitchen worker’s surreal experience happened just before midnight earlier this year, when he became another victim of what is generally known as “Knockout King” or simply “Knock Out,” a so-called game of unprovoked violence that targets random victims.

A top Duma political leader caused shock waves in a recent television interview when he warned that Russia could deploy an arsenal of new technology to destroy any part of the planet and kill over a hundred million people using secret weather weapons if the United States, the UN or Georgia tried to stop Russias entry into the WTO. Vladimir Zhirinovsky is Vice-Chairman of the Russian State Duma and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), the first officially sanctioned opposition party after the fall of communism. The LDPR has deep links with the former KGB and Communist Party and has become a significant force in Russian politics, despite Zhirinovsky himself being branded as a militant neo-fascist.

These are gruesome days: the Single Bullet Doctrine rules. The world is truly adrift and on the brink of a global “something”. Everyone can feel it here in the USA.

The US system of government is often described as a layer cake: federal on top, state in the middle, and local at the bottom. That cake is a mess. The frosting-the sweet taste of the American Way of Life–has melted away; the bitter taste of economic insecurity/uncertainty is everywhere in the country. The federal government has slid off the top of the cake and occupies a place completely disconnected from the remaining two layers–state and local. The state and local layers of the cake are drying up and crumbling as the economic crisis in the USA is causing them to jettison all sorts of labor and safety net programs. And cost to care for returning military personnel and the heavy burden on communities that involves makes life all the more difficult in 2011.

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, ‘obeys the traffic law of the universe’.

‘Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light,’ the university said on its website.

‘Professor Du’s study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves.’

Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.

This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.

Exxon Mobil, Bank of America, GE and other giant corporations paid no U.S. taxes despite billions in profits. In fact, they pocketed big IRS refunds. It’s a scandal, Sen. Bernie Sanders told colleagues on Wednesday. As congressional leaders and the White House haggled over how many billions of dollars to cut spending on programs for working families, Bernie tried to broaden the debate. He compiled a top-10 list of tax-dodging corporations. “Maybe we have to reduce that deficit not simply on the backs of working families, low-income people, the children, the sick, the elderly. Maybe, maybe we might want to call for shared sacrifice. Maybe Exxon-Mobil and some of the large oil companies might be asked to pay something in taxes.”

Only 3 days after the attack, I think I have single handedly proven that at least the Oslo aspect is a TOTAL SCAM!!!!- at first I noticed all their shared footage of this one shot.. then,they started showing a “video” of the same image I have been scrupulating for days now!!! Wow, talk about a massive screw-up!!!

Rodney King, whose videotaped beating by police led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, says he was under the influence of a “medical marijuana prescription” when police booked him this week on suspicion of driving while impaired.

“I had marijuana in me that I take to deal with migraine headaches and pain in my lower extremities, although I should not have been driving,” he told CNN Thursday.

Selling Google+ “likes” is gradually becoming a rather lucrative business, helped by cheap labour and the ever-falling price of internet access worldwide; the trend is not unlike what we saw previously with Twitter & Digg back in the day, except that this has a more widespread implication for SEO and could turn the nascent social networking service into a massive headache for Google, as many try to play the system.

Google+ selling sites like Googleplus1supply, buygoogleplus1 or Blackcatseo have cropped up during the last few months – among many other websites – with the sole aim of selling Google+ “likes” to publishers and businesses.

It turns out there’s a method behind the FBI’s raids of suspected Anonymous members around the country. The bureau is working from a list, provided by PayPal, of the 1,000 internet IP addresses responsible for the most protest traffic during Anonymous’ DDoS attacks against PayPal last December.

FBI agents served 40 search warrants in January on people suspected of hosing down PayPal during ”Operation Payback” — Anonymous’ retaliatory attack against companies who blacklisted WikiLeaks. On July 19, the feds charged the first 14 defendants under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and raided an additional 35 suspects for evidence.

Two of the most publicized accidental heroin overdose deaths involved celebrity names, and both were young men. In August 2009 Andre Young Jr., the 20-year-old son of Dr. Dre, died at his mother’s Los Angeles home from taking a mix of heroin and morphine.

In February 2008, troubled child star Brad Renfro died at age 25 in his L.A. apartment while he was still on probation from a dramatic Skid Row police sting in which he and others bought dummy heroin balloons from undercover LAPD officers.

Fried has a warning for partying young people: “We go through waves, and sometimes it’s more potent. For newer users, in the first six months of use, the potential to O.D. is huge. I’ve seen this, periods where that is what I believe is happening right now.”

Until now the best known examples of volcanism were on the moon’s near side in a region known as the Procellarum KREEP terrane.

The data dump waiting to be released apparently contains also documents stolen from the Australian Ministry of Defense, various big Russian companies such as Gazprom, a number of embassies and consulates situated in Ukraine, the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Egyptian Ministry of Transport and Communication, the US Department of Agriculture and hundreds of attorneys and government agencies, and others.

“This corrupted organization gathered all the evidence from the seized property of suspected computer professional entertainers and utilized it over many years to conduct illegal operations with foreign intelligence agencies and oligarchy to facilitate their lust for power and money, they never used obtained evidence to really support ongoing investigations,” writes the group.

So, you’re thinking of becoming a celebrity dope fiend. You’re thinking, “Hey, I’ve lived through some pretty intense stuff—my own little Vietnam!—so, doggone it, why can’t I cash in and write about my festive narcotic nightmare for fun and profit? God knows, lesser talents than me have milked the tired teat of bad habits, fucked-up relationships and an awful childhood to get a leg up in the lit and movie rackets…”

Police have arrested a man on suspicion of storing a computer virus on his personal computer without legitimate reasons, the Metropolitan Police Department announced Thursday.

The MPD arrested 38-year-old Yasuhiro Kawaguchi of Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, at his home Sunday immediately after investigators confirmed he was storing the virus in question on his personal computer.

The revised Penal Code, which was enforced July 14, bans storage of a computer virus for the purpose of infecting other computers. Violators can be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison or fined up to 300,000 yen.

The virus found on Kawaguchi’s computer works by repeatedly copying vast amounts of graphic elements and files on a computer, causing it to freeze or malfunction, according to the MPD.

✪ Waka Flocka Flame Busted for Weed in New York; Rapper’s Second Pot Arrest This Year

For the second time this year, rapper Wacka Flocka Flame (nee Juaquin Malphurs) has been arrested for marijuana possession. On Saturday, he was busted in a mall parking lot in Queens, New York. Flocka tweeted: “I had to spend the nite n jail with no charge.”

• 53% of Brits feel ‘upset’ when deprived of internet connection • 40% of people surveyed feel ‘lonely’ when not able to go online • Challenge of 24 hours without digital devices described as ‘nightmare’

A FINGERPRINT is all you need to determine whether someone is under the influence of drugs.

Paul Yates from Intelligent Fingerprinting, a company spun out from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and colleagues, have developed a handheld device that police can use to detect breakdown products from drugs excreted through sweat pores in the fingertips.

The device applies gold nanoparticles coated with antibodies to a fingerprint. The antibodies stick to antigens on specific metabolites in the fingerprint. Fluorescent dyes attached to the antibodies will highlight the presence of any metabolites. The technique was first used to detect nicotine, but now works on a range of drugs, including cocaine, methadone and cannabis.

An ambitious solar energy project on a massive scale is about to get underway in the Arizona desert. EnviroMission is undergoing land acquisition and site-specific engineering to build its first full-scale solar tower – and when we say full-scale, we mean it! The mammoth 800-plus meter (2625 ft) tall tower will instantly become one of the world’s tallest buildings. Its 200-megawatt power generation capacity will reliably feed the grid with enough power for 150,000 US homes, and once it’s built, it can be expected to more or less sit there producing clean, renewable power with virtually no maintenance until it’s more than 80 years old. In the video after the jump, EnviroMission CEO Roger Davey explains the solar tower technology, the Arizona project and why he couldn’t get it built at home in Australia.

There’s no need to panic, or start shopping for aluminum-foil headwear, but the super-secret National Security Agency has apparently been thinking frequently enough about whether the NSA is allowed to intercept location data from cell phones to track U.S. citizens that the agency’s chief lawyer was able to speak intelligently about it off the cuff while interviewing for a different job.

“There are certain circumstances where that authority may exist,” even if the NSA has no warrant to investigate a the person whose privacy it is invading or global permission to eavesdrop on everyone, according to Matthew Olsen, the NSA’s general counsel.

If you’re like most people, you give yourself high ratings when it comes to figuring out when someone’s trying to con you. Problem is, most people aren’t actually good at it–at least as far as detecting fake positive consumer reviews.

Fortunately, technology is poised to make up for this all-too-human failing. Cornell University researchers have developed software that they say can detect fake reviews (PDF). The researchers tested the system with reviews of Chicago hotels. They pooled 400 truthful reviews with 400 deceptive reviews produced for the study, then trained their software to spot the difference.

The software got it right about 90 percent of the time. This is a big improvement over the average person, who can detect fake reviews only about 50 percent of the time, according to the researchers.

* Tepco prioritised cost-savings over radiation standard

* Tepco says old plants like Fukushima have high radiation

* Foreign workers used to avoid exposing staff to high radiation

* Improvements made at Fukushima before disaster hit

So, apperently hacking a website, and not stealing any money or anything like that get’s you 15 years in jail, but most rapist only get 11 years. [“http://bit.ly/rcJslI 15 years for the Paypal attack? While 80% of rapists are sentenced to 11 years: http://bit.ly/rjvYLi YOU SERIOUS?” @anonymousirc] And rapist can get off 5 years early, but a hacker can’t because it’s a federal case. What is wrong with this? Well many things. Apparently the government puts a corperation’s website before a person. While having your website ddosed can lose you revonue, you can allways gain that back. Being raped however, you can never get back. That is something that can stay with you forever, and getting an STD from being raped can too. DDoSing is just a cyber sit in, it’s like blocking a door to a building. It’s not very damaging.

A Marietta, Ga., mom who was convicted of jaywalking after her 4-year-old son was run over and killed in a hit-and-run said on the Today Show that the worst part of going to jail would be the separation from her two remaining kids.

Raquel Nelson was convicted of homicide by vehicle and reckless conduct by a jury and faces sentencing tomorrow. She can receive up to a three-year jail sentence, six times the stretch that Jerry Guy–who admitted to drinking before running over Nelson’s son, A.J.–served.

There’s a long history, to be sure, of performers who wither away due to addiction while the world watches, but Winehouse’s death Saturday at age 27 has rekindled questions about the role the music industry should play in helping stars kick self-destructive habits.

Keila Smith, a 44-year-old Florida woman was jailed Wednesday after police raided her home and seized four truck loads of Psilocybin mushrooms.

And no, that wasn’t a typo. Four truckloads.

According to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, deputies raided Smith’s home Wednesday night and discovered a highly elaborate and well organized mushroom growing operation.

Investigators say the operation was so maticulous, the chairs, floor and tables in the kitchen were covered with plastic. Stainless steel shelving units contained hundreds of containers that were used to produce and store the product.

“There are multiple Rubber Maid containers full of small glass dishes with mushrooms growing in them,” said Sheriff’s Office spokesman, Sgt. Todd Kelly. “There are at least 1,000 of these containers. It took them four full-sized trucks and vehicles to load all of the stuff they seized from inside her house.”

Event promoter Mikal Barsa said in a press conference that “knowing Marilyn’s fans,” he expects the film­ — shot sometime between 1946 and 1947 — to go for at least twice the initial figure. The black and white, six minutes film was owned by a Spanish collector who recently passed away. Barsa had previously commercialized the only other copy of this film, which surfaced in 1997 and was sold to a private collector for $1.2 million in 2001.

Back then, controversy sparked over whether it was Monroe who appeared masturbating and having sex with an unknown man. At the conference, Barsa mentioned documents from the FBI investigating the origin of the film, and a set of jewelry worn by Monroe in the film that is the same as what she wore on other films and photos she did around that time.

✪ The Looting Of America: The Federal Reserve Made $16 Trillion In Secret Loans To Their Bankster Friends And The Media Is Ignoring The Eye-Popping Corruption That Has Been Uncovered

These loans only went to the “too big to fail” banks and to foreign financial institutions. Not a penny of these loans went to small banks or to ordinary Americans.

Not only did the banksters get trillions in nearly interest-free loans, but the Fed actually paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program. The GAO investigation revealed some absolutely stunning conflicts of interest, and yet the mainstream media does not even seem interested.

Solid evidence of the looting of America has been put right in front of us, and yet hardly anyone wants to talk about it.

Many Americans have a hard time grasping just how large 16.1 trillion dollars is. It is an amount of money that is almost inconceivable. It is more than the GDP of the United States for an entire year. It is more than the U.S. government has spent over the last four years combined.

On the 19th of July 2011, people in Fukushima had a meeting with government officals from Tokyo to demand that the government evacuate people promptly in Fukushima and provide financial and logistical support for them. Also, they brought urine of children to the meeting and demanded that the government test it.

Victims of sexual abuse by priests will no longer be able to sue the Catholic church for damages if a landmark judgment rules that priests should not be considered as employees.

In a little publicised case heard this month at the high court, the church claimed that it is not “vicariously liable” for priests’ actions. The church has employed the argument in the past but this was the first time it had been used in open court and a ruling in the church’s favour would set a legal precedent.

A mystery man arrested on minor charges more than three weeks ago remains behind bars in Utah while law enforcement officials try to determine his true identity, which he refuses to reveal. “This is really a strange case,” said Lt. Dennis Harris with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. “He just doesn’t want to be found.”The unidentified man, who has graying hair, a light beard and is believed to be in his 60’s, was arrested on July 1 for trespassing in a parking garage.

He was booked into jail on three misdemeanor charges and has thwarted any chance of release, with or without bail, by refusing to identify himself.

“I’ve been trying to think from A to Z why he would want to stay here … why he wouldn’t give us any information,” Harris said.

“He either has to be wanted by some other state or he could be on some other registry or database that has not shown up,” he added.

Law enforcement officials say the man is “fairly well spoken and educated,” but very guarded about his identity.

Because of massive corporate consolidation of agriculture, centrally coordinated global regulations, a devalued commodity-dollar and unrestrained commodity speculation, chemical and genetic modification, and real or manipulated food shortages; there is indeed a war being waged — with food as the primary weapon. Understand, this is a not purely a war on food, but rather a war on the general population. Therefore, it is crucial to understand these tactics in order to defend against them.

A South African health official says a man awoke to find himself in a morgue fridge — nearly a day after his family thought he had died.

Health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said Monday that the man awoke Sunday afternoon, 21 hours after his family called in an undertaker who sent him to the morgue after an asthma attack.

Kupelo says the man started yelling, prompting morgue workers to run away in fear. They eventually returned and removed him from the fridge. He was then taken to a nearby hospital and later discharged by doctors who deemed him stable.

The mortuary owner says his family is very happy to have him home.

However, Terrace thought differently and had chosen Stephanie LaFarge, a former student and lover, to bring up Nim in the large Manhattan townhouse she shared with her self-confessed ‘rich hippy’ writer husband, Wer, and their seven children.

But it was a disastrous decision — Stephanie never bothered trying to discipline Nim. She did not take any notes on the experiment and did not keep a log of Nim’s progress, but she did breastfeed him and give him alcohol and puffs on her cannabis joints.

He was encouraged to lay waste to their expensive home and wind up his rival for her affections, Stephanie’s husband. Home movie footage shows the little creature, a blur of black and white in his romper suit, charging around as Stephanie recounts dreamily how she let him explore her naked body as he moved into puberty.

‘I never felt sexually engaged with him,’ she recalls, which is a blessing at least. Yes, it certainly was the Seventies.

Video explodes on internet showing a man and woman pair abusing a cat in a puddle, repeatedly pressing the cat under water

Q: OK, so imagine a human and a dolphin both being bitten by a shark. How would the healing process differ between the two?

Well, the dolphin wouldn’t hemorrhage…or have any infection, which is miraculous. And despite having sustained massive tissue injury, within about month the animal will restore its normal body contour. There’ll be some surface markings, but a chunk of tissue maybe the size of a football will have been restored with essentially no deformity.

And what is equally amazing is that handlers who know these animals will tell you that they observe absolutely no indications in the animal’s behavior that it’s in pain.

To substantially reduce the amount of radioactive materials released from the plant, Tepco needs to get to the bottom of the problem: plugging holes or cracks in the reactors’ containment vessels that are allowing contaminated water to flood on-site facilities, including the reactor buildings and turbine buildings, experts said.

The updated road map, however, includes no reference to this critical work in the second stage, even though it was mentioned in past plans. And without fixing this problem, it is difficult to say that the release of radioactive materials is under control.

“In terms of managing the leakage of radioactive materials, I think plugging the holes will be the most important point,” said Tsuyoshi Misawa, a professor of reactor physics at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, adding he was perplexed it wasn’t included in the new plan.

We’ve all been there: sitting in a porta-potty where the door has a faulty latch, or waiting in line at a movie theater restroom that inexplicably has 12 sinks and two toilet stalls. Hey, they can’t all be awesome engineers.

But these photos we’ve found go above and beyond the simple “oops” you’d experience with your average bathroom flub. Oh no, ladies and gentlemen. These fails are far worse — and far more difficult to forgive.

So go ahead, try to imagine how you’d handle using these architectural wonders, and then be sure to vote for your favorites.

This graph, courtesy of the New York Times, has been making the rounds today, and it’s worth examining. Note that health care reform, much-maligned by the right as deficit-killer, cost less than even the most inexpensive of George W. Bush’s policies (that policy being Medicare Part D). Note also that the Bush tax cuts alone added more to the deficit than all of President Obama’s new policies combined — and that’s including projected spending over the course of a theoretical second term.

Cash from part of a $2.16 billion U.S. transportation contract in Afghanistan has ended up in the hands of Taliban insurgents, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The disclosure is another example of the persistent difficulty the U.S. military has in keeping its massive war funding from reaching the insurgents it is fighting in the unpopular, decade-old Afghan war.

The United States is spending more than $6 billion a month in the conflict.

Microsoft became a target of online ire over the weekend after the same Twitter account posted an update inviting people to remember Winehouse by buying digital versions of her “Back to Black” album at social.zune.net.

The Zune website is Microsoft’s shop on the Internet for downloading music, films and other entertainment content to computers, smartphones, and Xbox 360 videogame consoles.

Replies on Twitter criticized the Microsoft message as “crass” and “vile.”

The company immediately hired Randall Thompson to serve as the health physics technician in charge of monitoring radioactive emissions, while Joy Thompson got a job monitoring radiation doses to TMI workers.

“I had other health physicists from around the country calling me saying, ‘Don’t let it melt without me!” Randall Thompson recalls. “It was exciting. Our attitude was, ‘Sure I may get some cancer, but I can find out some cool stuff.'”

What the Thompsons say they found out during their time inside TMI suggests radiation releases from the plant were hundreds if not thousands of times higher than the government and industry have acknowledged — high enough to cause the acute health effects documented in people living near the plant but that have been dismissed by the industry and the government as impossible given official radiation dose estimates.

Bill Clinton wants the government to “correct” what you say on the Internet, folks. Should the government listen to the former panderer-in-chief, we’ll go from Big Brother to Big Bubba on the ol’ Internet tubes.

Bubba is not happy with what he claims is the “misinformation” on the Internet and he wants the force of government to stop it all. Politico is reporting that Clinton makes the proposal in an upcoming CNBC interview saying, “It would be a legitimate thing to do.”

No, Bubba, it would not.

Clinton says that the idea of having a government agency that “corrects” the “misinformation” on the Internet would be “independent” of government so it isn’t a traditional government agency. This, he feels would make it all A-OK with those fearing Big Brother government ministries of propaganda.

Again, Bubba, it would not.

If you listen carefully just above this unassuming grate you can hear the ripple and splash of flowing water. This is the sound of the River Fleet, London’s largest subterranean river. Forced underground by the city’s burgeoning populace the river still flows from its source to its mouth where it joins London’s main waterway, the Thames. Yet what lies beneath? Below the ground there is a remarkable network of tunnels and chambers, put in to place by Victorian engineers, the final step in a process which took centuries. For over a thousand years there had been a shipping dock at the mouth of the river – its name comes from the Anglo-Saxon fleot which means a tidal inlet. Yet it was not destined to persevere as a river in its own right.